Praying Against the Tide
The Early History of the Protestant Church on Guam

With Author's Permission to Publish © Rlene"Live" Productions 2003

PRAYING AGAINST THE TIDE

The Early History of the Protestant Church on Guam

A Master’s Thesis by

WILLIAM D. PESCH, Esq.

for the Micronesian Studies Program

University of Guam

(Copyright 2000, Hagatna, Guam)

Introduction   

Overview

            Some time in March, 1899, Jose Custino, a long-absent native son of Guam, returned to the island intent on converting his fellow Chamorros from long-entrenched Catholicism to Protestantism.  He was soon joined in this endeavor by his brother, Luis  (Forbes, 1997).  The Custino brothers were both born on Guam and, as was true for virtually all Chamorros of the time, were from a Catholic family.  Doubtless, their conversion to Protestantism bordered on the scandalous and potentially set them on a religious and cultural collision with the Chamorro mainstream.

            The Custino brothers’ unique experiences most likely enabled them to escape the parochial mind-set of an island long held under the authoritative influence and control of the Spanish Catholic Church.  Born Jose and Luis Castro, they left Guam at early ages and served as crew members on various whaling ships which plied wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean.  Most probably, during these travels the Custino brothers were exposed to new ideas including those which caused them to question and challenge the very foundation of their Catholic faith, the religion which had monopolized Guam’s populace for nearly two hundred years.

            Both Jose and Luis had settled in Hawaii by 1868 and changed their last name to Custino in an apparent attempt to accommodate the Hawaiian pronunciation of Castro (Forbes, 1997).   By this time many of the native Hawaiians had converted to Protestantism.  Since 1820 Hawaii had undergone intense missionization efforts by the Boston-based Congregationalists operating under the organizational umbrella of the American Board of Commissioners of the Foreign Missions (ABCFM). These efforts had proven extremely successful among the Hawaiians.  Jose and Luis were themselves eventually converted to Protestantism and became active members of the Central Union Church in Honolulu  (Forbes, 1997).

            The Custinos’ window of opportunity to proselytize to their people was created by dramatic world events with origins far removed from the tranquil shores of the sleepy Spanish outpost.  Burgeoning U.S. imperialistic tendencies along with a growing American disdain for the authoritative Spanish rule in the neighboring island of Cuba fueled the smoldering tensions between Spain and the U.S.  The mysterious sinking of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898, ignited President McKinley and the U.S. Congress to action. 

            On April 25, 1898, Congress declared war on Spain.   American troops were immediately dispatched to Cuba.  Simultaneously, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, ordered Commodore George Dewey to blockade Manila Harbor in the Philippines, Spain’s Asian colony.   Lacking sufficient numbers of ground troops, Dewey cabled Washington for reinforcements.  Three weeks later a four-ship convoy under the command of Captain Henry Glass sailed out of San Francisco Bay bound for the Philippines.  Once at sea Glass was ordered to detour to Guam and seize the Spanish island which could be used as a coaling station as the battle over the Philippines unfolded (Rogers, 1995).

            Much to his surprise and disappointment, Glass met with no overt opposition from the lightly armed Spanish garrison.  Without a single casualty, Spain’s rule on Guam came to an abrupt end at 2:45 p.m. on June 21, 1898, with the raising of the American flag above Fort Santa Cruz.  As evidence of the relative unimportance of the island to the U.S., the next day Glass’ convoy sailed out of Guam’s Apra Harbor leaving no U.S. official to oversee the island.  Instead, an American civilian, Frank Portusach, was allegedly designated as Guam’s caretaker until a formal American presence could be established (Rogers, 1995).

            On December 10, 1898, representatives of the U.S. and Spanish governments  signed the Treaty of Paris under which a defeated Spain ceded Guam and the Philippines, among other Spanish colonial holdings, to the United States for the compensation of $20 million. Guam was placed under governance of the Department of Navy on December 23, 1898, through an executive order signed by President McKinley.  Over the ensuing months the first Naval administration was established on Guam.  Richard Leary, an Annapolis graduate and practicing Protestant, was designated as Guam’s first U.S. governor. 

            Thus, a battle between enfeebled Spain, a former world power, and the United States, a growing nation anxious to exert its expanding economic, political, and military might abroad, set the stage for the Custino brothers’ unceremonious return to their native island.  No known written document reveals their exact expectations.  Did they anticipate that the intensity of their personal faith in Protestant tenets would alone guarantee them swift and overwhelming success among their people?  Or did they foresee that their efforts would be blunted by tremendous opposition and a variety of stumbling blocks from many different sources?

            What is clear from reviewing this historical period is that the Congregationalists’ missionization efforts towards the Chamorros during their nine-year tenure on Guam (from December 1900  to December 1909) were largely ineffective.  Only a very small fraction of the Chamorro populace, about 200 out of a total population of approximately ten thousand, participated in Protestant services (Forbes, 1997).  This relative failure to attract Protestant converts on Guam stands in stark contrast with the relative successes of the Hawaiian and Micronesian missions. 

            The purpose of this thesis is to study the early efforts (1900-1909) of the Custino brothers and their Congregationalist missionary successors to convert Guam Chamorros to Protestantism and to evaluate these efforts in light of various factors which may have inhibited their efforts.  The hypothesis of this work is that no single factor is solely responsible for the disappointing results of the Congregationalists’ Guam mission.  Rather, a multitude of influences, both large and small and from inside and outside the island, effectively stymied the efforts of the Protestant missionaries. 

            These influences, which are covered within the designated chapters, included the following:

Chapter 1.  This chapter explores the historical roots of the Congregationalist Church and its establishment of Pacific missions, including Hawaii and Micronesia.  The Congregationalists, like most other American Protestant denominations, underwent a strong spirit of revivalism in the first few decades of the 19th century.   These direct descendants of the Puritans sought foreign missions as a means of further strengthening the faith of their congregations and carried with them to these missions the tenets of hard work, structured living, and an unflinching conviction that reading the Bible opened the doors to eternal salvation.   The missions to Hawaii and Micronesia met with relative success.  Success on Guam proved much more illusive.

Chapter 2.  This chapter reviews both the history and legacy of Spanish Catholicism on Guam.  Perhaps no one single factor proved a greater impediment to the Protestant mission than the sheer weight of over two hundred years of Spanish Catholicism.  Faced with the first real threat to its religious hegemony on Guam the Catholic hierarchy wasted little time in attempting to undermine the success of the Protestants.  They appealed directly to the appointed governors and cultivated relations with those who displayed greater sympathies toward Catholics.  They mounted both local and national opposition to those governors whose biases favored the Protestants. The Catholic Church recruited more priests and nuns to serve Guam and expanded her school system and family services in an effort to out-compete the Protestants.

Chapter 3.  Reviews the Protestant dilemma of defining “Christianity.” Many Protestant denominations did not consider Catholicism a Christian religion.  For them Guam’s Catholic population was fertile mission territory.  However, some Americans disagreed with the exclusion of Catholicism from the family of Christian faiths and considered the Protestant mission on Guam at best a waste of time and at worse a divisive factor which inhibited the inculcation of American ideals.

Chapter 4.  Reviews the overall geopolitical situation existing in the Pacific region at the turn of the century.  The commercial enticement of China’s large population to U.S. business interests and the startling growth and effectiveness of Japan’s armed forces dramatically increased Guam’s importance as an economic springboard for U.S. commercial enterprise into Asia and as a potential buffer and staging ground for the U.S. military.

Chapter 5.  Explores the U.S. military’s role in administering Guam in light of the American legal imperative of separation of church and state.  Unlike the Protestant missions to Hawaii in 1820 and the Micronesian Islands’ missions beginning in 1852, all of which operated under local sovereign governments, the Guam mission operated under the strict governance of the U.S. Navy.  In contrast to their Hawaiian and Micronesian civilian counterparts, Naval governors were required to be mindful of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against favoring one religion over another.  The intransigent and sometimes ambivalent naval administration often proved to be a more formidable obstacle than Hawaiian and Micronesian civilian governments.

Chapter 6.  The significance of individual personalities in winning and losing Chamorro souls to Protestantism is explored.  Few would disagree with the notion that life for the early Protestant missionaries was difficult.  All missionaries faced a wide array of physical and psychological trials and tribulations, many of which were merely annoying while others were potentially life-threatening.  The ability to cope with these challenges differed significantly from missionary to missionary and had much to do with their relative success or failure in converting Chamorros to the Protestant faith. 

            The analysis which follows is based on a variety of secondary sources including contemporaneous articles and books as well as modern-day histories and discourses.  My discussion and analysis of these sources will be generously interspersed with primary sources in the form of missionary letters.  Protestant Congregationalist missionaries were required to correspond frequently with their home office in Boston.  True to their Puritanical roots, the ABCFM kept a meticulous archive and consequently most of the missionary correspondence has been preserved for the perusal of modern-day historians.  Included within the archives are numerous letters from two of Guam’s primary Congregationalist missionaries, Reverends Francis M. Price and Herbert E. B. Case.  Together these two missionaries spanned the entire duration of the Congregationalist mission on Guam from December 1900 to December 1909.  Their letters provide invaluable insights into how the above-identified six factors influenced the progress of Protestantism on Guam. 

A Brief Historical Sketch of the Guam Protestant Mission
 

            The Custino brothers’ lay efforts to convert their fellow Chamorros to Protestantism were soon followed by the formal presence of ABCFM missionaries, Rev. Francis M. Price, accompanied by his wife, Sarah, and Miss Mary Channell .  Price, a Harvard graduate and long-time missionary to China and Chuuk, was the chief proponent of the Guam mission.  He envisioned that the Guam mission, providentially situated on U.S. soil, would stand out as a beacon of both Protestant stalwartness and American righteousness and serve as a worthy example for the entire Pacific region.  He also believed that Guam should be designated as the headquarters and training center for the other missions situated in the German-held  eastern Caroline Islands and for future missions to Yap and Palau.

            The ABCFM decided to open the Guam mission primarily to minister to the spiritual needs of the military and the American civilian personnel stationed on the island (Garrett, 1992).  However, soon after the missionaries  November 27, 1900, arrival, perhaps as a result of the converts brought into the Protestant fold by the Custino brothers, the mission expanded its efforts to include the Chamorro population as well.  

            Together the Prices and Miss Channel rented a two- bedroom home in Hagatna, the capital of Guam and its most populated village.  This location would bring the missionaries into closer contact with both the Chamorro and American communities.  For a short period of time the Custinos’ initial group of Protestant adherents continued to meet in Jose’s home. However, shortly after Rev. Price’s arrival the group moved their meetings to his house.

            Dissatisfied with both the sanitary conditions in Hagatna and the limited amount of space for expansion, Price decided to relocate the mission.  He chose as the mission’s new site a 12-acre parcel of land bordering the ocean in Adelup.  This promontory soon became known as Missionary Point.  This placed the mission within close proximity of Hagatna and in clear view of all persons traveling between the port village of Piti and the capital.  On this property Price soon built two residences and two boarding schools, one for boys and one for girls.  He kept the Hagatna residence for regular worship service and for a day school.

            The mission’s activities soon included two Sunday services, Sunday school, a Thursday night prayer service, a day school with admission open to all, and a boarding school in which future Protestant leaders could be identified and trained.  The morning Sunday service was conducted in Chamorro and the evening service in English.  Price attempted to cater to the needs of both the Chamorro and American communities.

            Chamorros’ and Americans’ interest in the Protestant mission was, for the most part, disappointing.  Although many of the Custinos’ hard-earned converts continued to attend various mission activities, several succumbed to external pressures and slowly drifted away.  The few new Chamorros who did convert usually came from within established Protestant families rather than from the Catholic masses.  Attendance by the military community waxed and waned but seldom exceeded a mere handful.

            Rev. Price, an inherent optimist, was not discouraged.  From the mission’s very inception, he realized that progress on Guam would be much slower than in Hawaii and eastern Micronesia.  In his first letter back to the Boston Board he wrote, “The work will not be so rapid as in the Caroline Islands but the good word will win its way here and God’s people will hear the shepherd’s voice in our message and follow Him” (F. M. Price, personal communication, December 17, 1900).

            Price soon learned that his command of the Spanish language was of little help to him on Guam since few Chamorros spoke the language.  He felt an urgent need to learn the native tongue and soon enlisted the tutorial help of one of the church members, Jose Taitano.  Price worked hard at acquiring the language and apparently gained some proficiency.  He eventually preached services in Chamorro and translated Biblical gospels into the Chamorro language.

            In August, 1901, a physically debilitated Ms. Channel departed Guam leaving Price alone to minister to his fledgling congregation until the arrival of his own daughter, Alice, and her missionary husband, Arthur Logan, in April, 1902.  However, marital discord resulted in their departure in the summer of 1903.

            Despite the personnel setbacks the work of the mission progressed. On October 4, 1903, the Protestant mission was officially established under the name of Iglesia Evangelica de Guam.  There were 61 members including 30 probationers.  The next month the mission celebrated its first Protestant communion service during which the cup was offered to the laity (Garrett, 1992).  With considerable help from parishioner Jose Aguon Flores a small mission was begun in Inarajan. 

            This slow progress was again arrested when Rev. Price and his wife were forced to suddenly depart Guam to seek emergency medical treatment for Rev. Price who was suffering from partial face paralysis.  This left the mission with no missionary.  Prior to his departure Price assigned various duties to church members. 

            Rev. Price’s replacement, a young Herbert E. B. Case, arrived in Guam along with his wife in January, 1905.  Case was a recent  Harvard graduate and a newlywed.  He lacked the vast experience Rev. Price had brought to the Guam mission.  Although the mission had been without steady leadership for six months, Case, crediting the great efforts exerted by Rev. Price, found that church affairs were in surprisingly good order.  (H. E. B. Case, personal communication, February 8, 1905).

            Over the ensuing four years Case grew increasingly pessimistic about the Guam mission.  Many factors conspired to discourage him.  Despite his pleas to the Board, no new missionaries were sent to assist him.  This lack of support may have resulted from a fail attempt by the ABCFM to raise $1 million for their foreign missions.  Case found that he was not able to prepare for all the church services, keep the boarding schools open, and run the day school in Hagatna.  Much to his dismay, he was never able to learn the Chamorro language with any proficiency. This greatly hampered his ability to minister effectively to his congregation.   Church membership was growing at a very sluggish rate and even then new members were coming primarily from within the existing Protestant families rather than from new Catholic converts (H. E. B. Case, personal communication, March 20, 1905). 

            Between 1907 and 1909 Case’s letters painted an increasingly dismal picture of the Guam mission.  Little progress had been made in converting Catholic Chamorros.  Chamorro Protestant members appeared to him to be more interested in reaping the economic benefits bestowed on them as a result of their English language skills than they were in reaping spiritual benefits.  The boarding school students demanded too high of a lifestyle, increasing operation costs and ultimately requiring closure of both the boys’ and girls’ boarding schools.  Case began encouraging the ABCFM to consider transferring the mission to the Episcopalians whose rituals might prove more appealing to Catholic Chamorros (H. E. B. Case, personal communication, February 19, 1908).

            The Episcopalians declined the invitation. Despite this, the ABCFM decided to close the Guam mission and the Cases departed Guam on March 28, 1910.  At about the time of their departure there were approximately 50 full church members and 150 adherents.  Just before Case departed the island he ordained Jose Flores and appointed him to lead the Chamorro congregation in the absence of a missionary.  Jose Taitano and Jose Custino were appointed to assist Flores.  Arrangements were eventually made with the General Baptist Church headquartered in Owensville, Indiana, to take over the Guam mission.  The first General Baptists’ missionaries, Arthur and Edith Logan, arrived on Guam on September 27, 1911.  This began a ministry which continues to this day.
 

Chapter 1 - Early history of the Protestant movement in Oceania

Religious Revivalism in the United States.  As a result of the United States’ victory in the Spanish American War, colonial outposts with long histories of Spanish Catholicism, such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines, and Guam, were opened for the evangelical efforts of various religious denominations, including the Protestants.  Protestant congregations from across the U. S. wasted little time in sending their missionaries abroad.

            Jose and Luis Custino, who followed closely behind the arrival of the American administration, became the first Protestant missionaries to Guam.  Luis Custino may have been affiliated with the Salvation Army while his brother Jose was a Congregationalist, the American denomination with the longest history in the Pacific region (Forbes, 1997).  Starting in Hawaii in 1820, they began their westward advancement across Micronesia and the Pacific region, reaching Guam and the Philippines nearly eighty years later.

            Although the establishment of the Congregationalist mission to the Hawaiian Islands was the first American Protestant mission in the Pacific, it was not the first Protestant foray into Oceania.  In 1797 the London Missionary Society (LMS) became the first Protestant entity to send missionaries to the Pacific Islands. For this reason the Hawaiian mission’s early founding fathers turned to England for guidance and moral support.   

            They discovered that the early LMS missions were hardly beacons of success.   The LMS sent eighteen missionaries to Tahiti, ten to Tongatapu in Tonga, and two to Tahuata in the Marquesas. The missionaries lacked adequate training in and sensitivity toward the cultural practices and beliefs of the people whom they sought to convert.  Consequently, from early on, basic Christian tenets and traditional cultural practices clashed.  On the first night of missionary John Harris’ stay in Tahuata, the hospitable chief loaned Harris his wife to be treated as if she were his own  (Garrett, 1982).  Harris deflected her sexual advances and she began to doubt his sex.  Later in the evening she and some friends removed his clothing to discover for themselves if Harris possessed standard male equipment.  Satisfied with the results they ran away with his clothing.  Awakened by their brash movements he hid and the next day fled the island never to return. 

            The other missions suffered similar plights.  In Tonga three of the missionaries were killed during civil disorder.  Another one “went native.”  The others lived in deplorable conditions and departed the island in early 1800.  In Tahiti the missionaries were, for the most part, well-treated.  However, efforts to impart their Christian message initially met with little success.  Only through dogged determination and fortuitous alliances with various chiefs, were some of these missions able to make slow progress.  By 1820 many Tahitians were at least nominally “converted” to Christianity (Garrett, 1982).

            Along with adventurers, traders, and whalers, American missionaries played an important role in the success of the U.S. in pushing her boundaries and sphere of influence westward across the Pacific.  Capitalism and missionary efforts frequently coincided and complemented each other, although, as with any relationship, there were conflicts and confrontations.

            The roots of evangelical interest in the Pacific are derived from to the short life of a native Hawaiian, Henry Obookiah.  Henry, whose family had been killed in an inter-island war in the early years of the 19th century, and his friend, Thomas Hopu, decided to seek opportunities elsewhere.  They had found employment aboard an American ship bound for New York.  Once in port at New York, the captain took the young men to his home in New Haven where they became local celebrities.  Thomas was befriended by some Yale students who sponsored him to study at the University.  Henry, who also was eager to study, was not so fortunate.  Frustrated, he roamed the pathways of the University and was resting when a student by the name of Timothy Dwight came upon him.  On learning of Henry’s plight, Dwight volunteered to sponsor his studies at Yale. 

            There was a strong Protestant tradition at the university and Henry soon found himself immersed in the teachings of Protestant Christianity.  Henry committed himself to complete his religious studies and to return to Hawaii and spread the Christian faith.  Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, he succumbed to the ravages of typhus fever on February 17, 1818, at the age of 26 (Piercy, 1992).  However, his devout spirit, which had touched the hearts of many of his fellow students and teachers, lived on and were infused into the “Foreign Mission School” which had been founded by the ABCFM in 1816.  Here, young Islander men and American Indians could attend school and learn Christian principles and doctrines.

            In fulfillment of Henry’s dream, in 1819 fourteen missionaries departed Boston bound for Hawaii.  Their arrival in Honolulu marked the beginning of the American Christian tradition in the Pacific and their teachings, along with the earlier and ongoing efforts by English Protestant missionaries, sowed the seeds for the most drastic assault yet made on the multitude of Pacific Island cultures  (Warren, 1860).

            The Henry Obookiah story presents a neat explanation for the early American Protestant incursion into the Pacific and instills a sense of an altruistic purpose behind the missions.  Although the fervent desire to spread the gospel of Christ was a motivating factor behind the establishment of foreign missions in the Pacific, the movement abroad served a much more pragmatic purpose - - it helped reverse a trend of declining interest and membership in various Protestant denominations in northeastern America (Andrew, 1976).     

            Several factors contributed to this decline in organized religion.  First and perhaps foremost was a drastic shift in the economic stability of New England.  For the most part, in the latter years of the 18th century, small agricultural farms formed the economic backbone of New England towns.  Keen foreign competition and growing competition from new farms established on the expanding western frontiers, slowly eroded New Englanders’ ability to compete agriculturally.  Compounding this situation, the War of 1812 greatly undermined trade with Great Britain, America’s leading trade partner.  This dramatic decrease in foreign trade struck another blow to New England’s economic base by turning their port cities into virtual ghost towns. 

            The gradual introduction of manufacturing to New England started to pick up the economic slack and lured many rural inhabitants to the burgeoning cities to find employment.  Social disorganization resulted.  Such a population shift began the decline of the extended family and resulted in the erosion of traditional communities.  The break up of families and communities frequently undermined the ability of towns to support churches and ministers.  The instability of ministerial services forced many ministers to quit the profession.  Those that remained vied for wealthier flocks or became itinerant preachers, a concept which up to that point in American history had been very unpopular.  Many parishioners became disillusioned and church membership dropped sharply.  The social fibers of many New England communities were stretched to their breaking points.

            A third factor which accelerated the decline in Protestantism was the phenomenal growth of the Unitarian church.  Protestant trinitarians viewed Unitarians as a real threat to their basic belief structure.  The Protestants’ fears were heightened when Reverend Henry Ware, a Unitarian, was appointed to the prestigious and powerful position of Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard University.  This gave Unitarians a solid foundation on which to build membership and to challenge the strength of Congregationalists and Presbyterian churches.

            Compounding the economic, social, and religious challenges faced by New England Protestants were sweeping political changes.  Beginning in the 1790s there was a call for the abolishment of all state support for religions.  This was viewed as a direct assault on religious orthodoxy.  In a struggle for survival some religions allied themselves with political parties.  Such an alliance was developed between the Unitarian church and the Federalists and viewed with disdain by the Protestant trinitarians (Andrew, 1976).

            With their very survival threatened, ministers began to sound the alarm. In 1812, Lyman Beecher, a prominent New England Congregationalist preacher warned:

The mass is changing. We are becoming another people.  Our habits have held us long after those moral causes that formed them have ceased to operate.  These habits, at length, are giving way.  So many hands have so long been employed to pull away foundations, and so few to repair breaches, that the building totters . . . . If we do neglect our duty, and suffer our laws and institutions to go down, we give them up forever ( Andrew, 1976, p. 68).

            Numerous ministers and churches banded together to reverse the downward trend in church attendance.  In 1805 Jedidiah Morse began publishing the Panoplist in a successful attempt to promote religious orthodoxy.  With the growth of American missionary efforts in subsequent years, the title of the publication and its emphasis changed.  In 1808 it was called the Panoplist and in 1820 it changed to the Missionary Herald, house organ to the ABCFM.  The publication contained letters, anecdotes, and tragedies from foreign lands.

            On September 28, 1808, in an attempt to arrest the rapid growth of Unitarianism, the Andover Theological Seminary (ATS) in Massachusetts opened.  All professors had to have a college degree and be a member of either the Congregationalist or Presbyterian churches.  The foundation for future foreign missions was laid at ATS when Samuel Mills, Jr. formed the Society of Inquiry on the Subject of Missions.  “The society was to investigate the state of the Heathen; the duty and importance of missionary labors, the best manner of conducting missions, and the most eligible place for their establishment”  (Andrew, 1976, p. 21).  This organization eventually led to the founding of the ABCFM.

            The ABCFM was founded in 1810 and incorporated in 1812.  Its goal was to unite clergy and the public in a global Christianization crusade.  Through such efforts the founders hoped to preserve a religious reawakening then sweeping New England and to remove the competitiveness and divisiveness among various trinitarian denominations.  In short, they wanted to construct a new Christian commonwealth which would unite the New England faithful and rekindle their strong religious orthodox roots.

            To complement the establishment of the ABCFM, auxiliary organizations affiliated with local churches sprang up across New England.  These support groups served the dual purpose of raising funds for foreign missions and as propaganda outlets to flame the missionary zeal of the faithful parishioners.  The movement was extremely successful.

            The early American missionary movement looked to the London Missionary Society (LMS) for guidance.  Several American ministers visited the LMS and traveled to some of their foreign missions.  Working in conjunction with the LMS, the ABCFM funded missions to India in 1812, 1815, and 1817.  Poorly organized and trained, these missions failed to generate much excitement

            Realizing that the success of early missionary efforts within newly acquired territories as well as foreign destinations abroad would depend on the ABCFM’s ability to adequately train missionaries to meet the challenges of foreign proselytism, supporters began lobbying the ABCFM to establish a foreign mission school in Connecticut which would cater primarily to foreign enrollment.  In 1816 an article appearing in the Panoplist discussed the advantages of training native missionaries.

They would . . . serve as good examples to their people, be fluent in native languages, find the climate agreeable, and know the local manners and customs.  But they would be most useful for their ability to allay native suspicions about American missionaries.  With native help Americans could ease themselves into intimate and influential positions in heathen nations, from which they could assert their “benevolent guardianship” (Andrew, 1976, p. 87).

            The Foreign Mission School at Cornwall, Connecticut, was established in 1816 and opened its doors in May 1817.  The school significantly advanced the goal of sending missionaries abroad.  Students included American Indians, natives of various foreign countries and a number of Hawaiians.  Their presence served as an example to New Englanders of the “savable heathens” who, through the support of the New England faithful, could offer redemption to the poor souls of foreign lands.  A few American students were also allowed to attend, to serve as guides and role models.  Through the curriculum and atmosphere of the school the foreign students would be exposed to “the operation of principles which they are expected to inculcate” (Andrew, 1976, p. 87).
 

Expansion into Hawaii.  The existing auxiliary organizations began to support the fledgling school.  Inspired by the lofty goals of the school, parishioners contributed generously.  However, as time passed, believers became anxious to see results.  The early missions to India had done little to stimulate the imaginations of Christian New Englanders and had failed to produce tangible benefits to justify the efforts.  As a consequence, the ABCFM began making plans to expand missions to India, Ceylon, Palestine and the Sandwich Islands, as the Hawaiian Islands were then known. 

            Of the four planned missions the largest and most important was the latter to the Hawaiian Islands.   The groundwork for capturing the imagination of the New England Christian faithful on the possibilities of advancing God’s word in the Hawaiian Islands had already been established.  Several Hawaiians, including Henry Obookiah, had made their way to New England.  Like Henry, most had been sailors on board various New England sailing ships which were primarily involved in the lucrative sandal wood trade.  The ready availability of Sandwich Islanders in New England provided foreign mission proponents with examples of worthy heathens.  In 1816 the Narrative of Five Youths from the Sandwich Islands was published.  This publication related the story of these men in the United States, and told of their educational and religious progress.  The publication was well received and through ongoing organized efforts to focus attention on the Sandwich islands plans were laid to send a mission there (Andrew, 1976).

            Many of the organized efforts centered around young Obookiah. Following his arrival in New Haven, Connecticut in 1809, he was befriended by Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale University with whom he lived for a year.    During the ensuing years, Henry resided with a variety of prominent religious figures who guided his Christianization.  On occasion Henry would be introduced to attentive crowds to drum up interest in the idea of foreign missions.  Through these appearances and various articles in Christian publications Henry became a well known figure who epitomized  “the essential goodness and intelligence of heathens everywhere” (Andrew, 1976, p. 101).

            On October 23, 1819, a band of fourteen American missionaries and three Hawaiian graduates of the Foreign Mission School, who would act as assistants, set sail from Boston harbor for the Sandwich Islands aboard the brig Thaddeus.   On the eve of their departure they were instructed “to aim at nothing short of covering those islands with fruitful fields and pleasant dwellings, and schools and churches; of raising up the whole people to an elevated state of Christian civilization. . . Above all to convert them from their idolatries and superstitions and vices, to the living and redeeming God”  (Garrett, 1982, p. 35).

            Unlike the LMS missions in the Pacific, the American mission, led by Hiram Bingham and Asa Thurston, initially met with few obstacles. In fact, during their six month voyage circumstances in Hawaii dramatically improved the mission’s chances for success.  King Kamehameha I had died and his death had sparked a religious revolution.  Prior to his death, influenced by a stream of foreigners, Hawaiians had begun to question and challenge traditional religious beliefs and the culturally ingrained kapu sanctions by which certain classes of people were forbidden to perform many of the most mundane activities.  All idols were ordered destroyed.  With Kamehameha’s death pent-up frustrations erupted.  This disruption of traditional religious beliefs was most fortuitous for the missionaries.  The missionaries were given permission to land and the Hawaiians appeared receptive to the missionaries’ Christian message.  Divine providence and intervention were frequently credited for this early success.

            However, continued success was actually quite elusive.  After two years the mission’s progress was slow.  The missionaries wrote to the LMS and asked for their assistance and advice.  On April 15, 1822, in response to these entreaties, William Ellis, a member of the LMS, his wife and nine converts from Tahiti arrived in Honolulu.  Actually, most of the Tahitians were bound for the Marquesas where they were to serve as missionaries.  Bad weather had forced them to seek refuge in Honolulu. 

            Among the Tahitians was Auna, a man of high rank in Tahiti, who prior to his conversion to Christianity had attained a reputation as a fierce warrior (Garrett, 1982).   He immediately established a rapport with Kuakini, the Governor of Hawaii, who informed Auna of other Tahitians living on the island.  Kuakini took Auna and the other Tahitians to visit their fellow countrymen and introduced them to numerous Hawaiians with whom they could converse because of the similarity between their languages.

            The parties’ good fortune did not stop there.  One day when the missionaries’ ship was approaching shore Auna’s wife recognized her long-lost brother aboard an approaching canoe.  Her brother, Moe, had left Tahiti nearly thirty years earlier aboard the ill-fated Bounty.  In Hawaii Moe served as the steward to the Queen Kaahumanu, the widow of Kamehameha.  This connection gave the group instant contact with Hawaiian high chiefs and eventually to the Queen Mother herself who became quite fond of the Tahitians.  After only three weeks an invitation was extended by several chiefs to the entire LMS group to remain in Hawaii.  Only after consulting with their American missionary counterparts did they accept the invitation on behalf of a few members of their group.  These members ministered to King Liholiho and high ranking Hawaiians.  Within four months of their arrival “the King . . . declared his regard for the Word of God!  He himself, his queens, great number of chiefs, are daily receiving instruction by all hands” (Garrett, 1982, p. 43). 

            This was the break for which the American missionaries had anxiously awaited.  As a result of the high ranking officials’ conversion to the new Christian faith, and in conjunction with the loss of their own indigenous religion, the Hawaiian people flocked to the newly constructed churches.  Within a decade half the population of the island of Hawaii was estimated to be literate.  By 1837, approximately 2,000 Hawaiians had become full communicants while many more had been baptized and were adherents to Christianity (Garrett, 1982). 

            However, after a decade of great success, a certain level of complacency had set into the mission and progress slowed.  The arrival of three dynamic American missionaries, Titus Coan, David Lyman, and Lorenzo Lyons, changed both the tone and direction of the American mission.  Their flamboyant methods of evangelization along with a conciliatory approach to religious “back-sliders” appealed to the masses and were much more in tune with traditional Hawaiian customs and festivities.  As a result, a spirit of revivalism, not unlike the American revival decades earlier, swept through the Hawaiian Islands as did a movement to indigenize Protestantism.   Congregationalist membership soared.  These successes were reported back to the faithful supporters in the multitude of New England parishes.  As had been hoped, the progress in the Hawaiian Islands strengthened U.S. mainlanders’ resolve and faith and lent support to the goal of establishing the Christian commonwealth. 

            Thus, fortuitous events such as the disintegration of the native Hawaiian religion and the arrival and support of Tahitian missionaries, along with the willingness of the ABCFM to keep the missions staffed with twelve companies of missionaries between the years of 1819 and 1848, and the individual efforts of talented missionaries, all contributed to the overwhelming success of the Congregationalists’ Hawaiian mission.  By 1852, the Hawaiian Protestant Church achieved independence from the ABCFM and its members stood ready to carry the Christian message to other parts of the Pacific.

Expansion into Micronesia. Interestingly, in its evolution the Hawaiian mission experienced a similar longing as had their American brethren thirty years before.  Success had bred a certain degree of uneasiness due to complacency and threatened to undermine the fervor of the faithful.  New goals had to be set to engage imaginations and to strengthen the faith of the Hawaiian Protestants.  The establishment of new missionary outreaches seemed the most viable and expedient means to accomplish these goals.

            The most likely targets for directing this missionary zeal were Hawaii’s nearest Pacific neighbors, the Micronesians.  Through a joint venture between the ABCFM and the Hawaiian Missionary Society a missionary party of ten was assembled.  Six of them -- Dr. Luther Gulick, the son of an early missionary to Hawaii, and his wife, Louisa, Rev. Benjamin Snow and his wife, Lydia, and Rev. Albert Sturges and his wife, Susan, were Americans.  In a testimonial to the phenomenal success of missionary efforts in Hawaii, the other two couples, Mr. Daniel and Mrs. Doreka Opunui and Mr. Berita and Mrs. Debora Kaaikaula, were native Hawaiians.  When the ten missionaries and fourteen crew members sailed out of Honolulu harbor on July 15, 1852 aboard the schooner Caroline, they carried with them a letter from the Hawaiian monarch, King Kamehameha III, himself a devout Christian.  His words displayed how thoroughly Christian principles had permeated Hawaiian culture.

There are about to sail for your islands some teachers of the Most High God, Jehovah, to make known unto you His Word for your eternal salvation. . . I commend these good teachers to your esteem and friendship and exhort you to listen to their instructions.  I have seen the value of such teachers.  We here on my islands lived once in ignorance and idolatry.  We were given to war and were very poor.  Now my people are enlightened.  We live in peace and some have acquired property.  Our condition is greatly improved and the Word of God is the cause of our improvement.  I advise you to throw away your idols, take the Lord Jehovah for your God, worship and love Him and He will bless and save you (Crawford, 1967 p. 27).

            The first missionaries to Micronesia settled in Kosrae and Pohnpei.  Over the ensuing years the missions spread across the western Pacific: first to the Marshall and the Gilbert Islands in 1857; followed by Pingelap and Mokil in 1871; the Mortlocks in 1874; and finally Chuuk, whose inhabitants were notorious for their ferocity, in 1889.

            The Protestants’ missions in Micronesia, although eventually considered quite successful, were much slower to develop and grow than had the Hawaiian mission.  Several factors contributed to the slower progress.  Most obvious was the greater distances separating the Micronesian islands.  At a time when transportation among the islands was dependent on boats, the missionaries frequently found themselves at the mercy of the owners and captains of private vessels.  This situation was remedied to a degree with the arrival of the first of a series of small ships each called the Morning Star.   These ships were used exclusively to support the Protestant missions.  Although the Morning Star helped considerably, one ship could not meet all the needs of the far-flung missions.  In addition, visiting the various island mission camps meant that some missionaries were absent from their own congregations for long stretches of time.  This situation inhibited membership growth.

            In Hawaii there was only one new culture and language confronting the missionaries.  In Micronesia, there were numerous diverse cultures and languages which frequently were mutually unintelligible.  One of the first priorities set by the missionaries was to acquire the language of the people.  This was necessary both to converse with the islanders as well as to begin translating the Bible into the native language for eventual publication and wide distribution.  This process was made much more challenging considering that the range of languages spoken by the inhabitants of the Caroline, Marshall, and Gilbert Islands (now known as Kiribati).

            Disease was also a major problem faced by the early missionaries to Micronesia.  Alcoholism and syphilis preceded the arrival of the missionaries. These scourges were introduced into the islands by whalers and beachcombers.  In 1854 an infected ship brought about a smallpox epidemic which ravaged Pohnpei.  Rev. Gulick, himself a medical doctor, found his stock of vaccine to be tainted. In a supreme act of selflessness he inoculated himself with a culture taken from an infected man and created a new stock of vaccine which undoubtedly saved hundreds of lives. 

            Life in the Micronesian Islands also took its toll on the missionaries.  Numerous missionaries and their wives fell victims to various tropical diseases, some died on the islands while others were forced to abandon their missions and recuperate in a more hospitable climate.  Gulick himself was forced to return to Hawaii in 1860 due to extremely poor health.  Rev. Doane’s wife was evacuated from Kusaie in 1857 to Hawaii where she died several years later.  Doane’e second wife likewise was forced to withdraw from Pohnpei sometime in the mid-1860s.  Such losses undoubtedly slowed the evangelical process.

            Foreign involvement and meddling also significantly impacted on the progress of the Protestant missions in Micronesia.  In the latter two decades of the 19th century, geopolitical factors began to exert tremendous influence on Protestant missionary activities.  When the first Protestant missionaries arrived in Pohnpei and Kosrae in 1853 no foreign power claimed dominion over Micronesian islands, with the exception of Spain in the Marianas.  However, Asia’s growing commercial importance brought the strategically located Micronesian Islands into the imperialistic cross-hairs of foreign nations.  Spain and Germany vied for ownership of the Carolines.  In 1886, the two countries nearly went to war over possession of Yap.  A papal decision in favor of Spain resulted in a tenuous truce.  Catholic missionaries were soon dispatched to Yap and Pohnpei where they challenged the Protestant missionary monopoly.  Tension between the two churches would mount over the ensuing years.

            Despite these factors, the missionaries made slow but steady progress in converting the Micronesians. For the Protestants the measure of success differed markedly from their Catholic counterparts.  For Catholics, heaven was attained through baptism, which was available to anyone regardless of age or level of religious preparation.  Father Sanvitores, the first Catholic missionary in Micronesia, began baptizing Chamorros within hours of his arrival to Guam on June 15, 1668.   By the time he finished saying his first mass he had baptized twenty-three children (Rogers, 1995).

            For Protestants the path to church membership and heaven was considerably more arduous.  Conversion required a much greater degree of intellectual religious reflection.  Candidates had to undergo a relatively rigorous program of educational indoctrination and display a requisite level of understanding and acceptance of Protestant doctrine.  Only then were they eligible for baptism and eventually full church membership. 

            Consequently, as reported in the ABCFM publication, Micronesian Mission 1852-1907, Kosraeans did not see their first two Protestant converts until 1859, some six years after the mission opened.  By 1862, membership climbed to thirty.  In Pohnpei, eight years passed before the first native islander gained church membership.  However, membership swelled to 163 by 1867.  Throughout Micronesia, the numbers of Protestant church members grew: there were 545 in 1868; 928 in 1873; almost 1200 in 1875; and 1,498 by 1878. Of course, many more Micronesians attended Protestant activities, such as Bible studies, socials, and church services, on their way to full church membership.

            As the 19th century drew to an end new challenges awaited the Protestant missionaries throughout Micronesia.  The sudden appearance of the U.S. in the western Pacific made a complex situation even more complex and brought the Catholic Church to a face-off situation with the Protestants both in Guam and the Philippines.  Jose and Luis Custino’s return to Guam in 1899 brought these tensions to a head on the heretofore Catholic island.  For well over two hundred years the Catholic Church had ruled the hearts and minds of the Chamorro people.  The Catholic hierarchy was not about to take the challenge to their hegemony lightly.  Those Chamorros who chose to leave the Catholic fold for the Protestant faith would feel the full brunt of Catholic obstinacy.
 

Chapter 2 - The legacy of Spanish Catholicism on Guam
 

            With little doubt the most formidable obstacle facing the Custino brothers and their missionary successors in converting Chamorros to Protestantism was the sheer weight of nearly 280 years of Spanish influence in the island.  Along with the Spaniards came their unique version of the Catholic religion.  By the time the United States established its administration on Guam in 1899 the cultural attributes of the Chamorros had undergone a radical transformation under their Spanish colonizers.  Spanish Catholic rituals and beliefs had permeated many aspects of Chamorros’ everyday lives.  John Garrett, a historian of Christianity in Oceania, summed the situation as follows:

On Guam until 1900 this form of Catholicism absorbed many features of the pre-Christian culture.  Descent was matrilineal, giving women powers of inheritance through daughters and control over family land and religious life.  Ancestral spirits were placated and commemorated in the old culture by magic and spells; in Catholicism equivalent ceremonies played a central part in the lives of families - fiestas for patron saints and novenas (nine-day periods of prayer) celebrating deliverance from earthquakes and cyclones or other special blessings.  Local sports and customs were retained - cockfighting, open air merrymaking in the settlements, and celebrations honouring the Blessed Virgin in her many capacities, including being a bestower of children and protector of lovers.  Those parts of the culture which survived the ravages of Spanish soldiers in the first years of the church’s life gathered up old Chamorro custom in the new Christian sacral blend (Garrett, 1992 pp. 307-8).

Therefore, to say that the Catholic Church was the primary focus of Chamorro familial, social, political, economic, and religious activities at the end of the 19th century would not be an overstatement.

            Such deep roots would not be easily excised by the Protestant missionaries nor would their attempt to excise them be taken lightly by either the Catholic Church or her Chamorro adherents.  Over the nine-year tenure of the Congregationalist mission there was constant scrimmaging between the two Churches.  Like boxers sizing each other up in the ring, the two Churches attempted to find the vulnerabilities of the other and exploit them to their own advantage and to the disadvantage of the other.  Fortunately for the Chamorros, the rivalry between the two Churches most frequently resembled a sparring match rather than a full blown prize-fight.  Undoubtedly, the U.S. military’s presence on Guam helped keep the fray within gentlemanly bounds, more-or-less.  What the battle lacked in overt violence was made up in dogged determination and persistence on both sides to undermine the other’s credibility and influence.  

            From the very beginning the Protestant missionaries were fighting an uphill battle.  Upon their arrival virtually the entire Chamorro populace was Catholic.  Those who chose to leave the Catholic Church  and dared to pray against the tide did so at their own social peril.  For the most part, the battle for souls did not take place in open forums.  Rather, the struggle for souls took place within the private confines of Chamorros’ homes where the cultural heart of the Chamorro people beat its strongest. 

            From a historical perspective the difficulties faced by those who chose to pray against the tide of the Catholic Church is hardly surprising.  After all, Spanish roots on Guam go back to Magellan’s “discovery” of the island on March 6, 1521.  Although the pace of Spain’s contact with Guam following Magellan’s “discovery” was slight at first, with only an occasional trader or explorer visiting the island, Spain eventually established a galleon trade between Acapulco and Manila linking European and Asian markets.  On an annual basis  Spanish ships called upon Umatac harbor to replenish food and supplies and as a place for respite for the crew during their long journey (Driver, page 13).

            One galleon passenger in particular would have a lasting impact on Guam and the Chamorro people, Father Diego de Sanvitores.  In May 1662, he was a passenger aboard the galleon San Damian bound from Mexico to the Philippines, when it anchored in Umatac Bay. This brief stop proved to be the turning point in Sanvitores’ life and the lives of all Chamorros.  Although for decades the Spanish galleons had used Guam as a restocking port, there was no permanent Spanish settlement on the island. Consequently, there were no priests to minister to the spiritual needs of the native islanders.  As Sanvitores surveyed the faces of the Chamorros who surrounded the galleon in their fast sailing proas, he was suddenly struck with a divine revelation that his life’s mission was to convert these islanders to the Christian faith (Sullivan, 1957)).

            On March 23, 1668, after much political and ecclesiastical wrangling by Father Sanvitores, the ship San Diego slipped out the Acapulco port bound for the Ladrones Islands, as the Mariana Islands were then known.  Joining Sanvitores on board were several Jesuit priests and assistants, and a thirty-two person garrison lead by Captain Juan de Santa Cruz.  The garrison was tasked with protecting the fledgling mission. 

            The San Diego landed on Guam on June 16, 1668.  San Vitores wasted little time in evangelizing to the people. Within hours of his arrival he began baptizing Chamorros.  By the end of the first year the Catholic Church boasted over 13,000 baptisms throughout the Marianas (Rogers, 1995). (Various sources differ significantly over the number of pre-contact Chamorros.  However, all agree that the numbers were drastically reduced after contact with the Spanish).  Although these initial successes seemingly boded well for the mission, before long the priests met with growing opposition from the islanders whose traditions and lifestyles were threatened by certain Catholic principles and teachings.  The opposition soon turned violent resulting in the martyrdom of most of the first group of Catholic missionaries, including San Vitores who fell victim to the rage of Matapang, chief of Tumon, on April 2, 1672.  

            Spain reacted by sending additional troops to quell the uprising.   Warfare raged throughout the Mariana Islands for the next two decades.  Spanish excesses, which had been held in check by Sanvitores, now flourished and thousands of islanders died in numerous battles before their final defeat on the island of Agrigan in July, 1695.  The price for peace and Catholicism was high.  The population of the native islanders decreased from approximately 12,000 in 1668 to fewer than 2,000 by 1690.  The steep decline was due to war, the ravages of European diseases, and mass emigration (Rogers, 1995).

            After 1700 the greatly reduced population ceased all rebellious activity and, at an accelerated pace, their cultural traditions were replaced with new ones more conducive to the requirements of Spanish Catholicism.   Many of the widely dispersed villages were abandoned and the Chamorros began to live in more urban centers, partidos, close to the churches and chapels and under the watchful eyes of the parish priests  (Driver, date p. 7).    

            Understandably, with many of their traditional cultural expressions virtually destroyed, the Chamorros began to turn to the Catholic Church for solace from the harsh realities of their daily lives.  Most of the surviving Chamorros converted to Catholicism and the level of their devotion surprised even the missionaries (Hezel, ).  Throughout Spain’s long tenure in Guam, the strength of the Catholic Church increased and slowly permeated most aspects of their lives.  The Catholic Church, having assimilated many of the remaining pre-contact cultural remnants,  became the focal point for many social and cultural activities.

To say that the life of the village was regulated by the church bells would hardly be an exaggeration.  They tolled for mass in the morning, for rosary in the afternoon, three times a day for the Angelus, and for the De Profundis at the death of anyone in the community.  Religious feasts were occasions of special solemnity, with the entire village turning out for mass, and the feast days of the patron saints of the churches drew crowds from all parts of the island (Hezel, date, p. 21).

            With this history in mind, Price realized that confronting the Catholic mainstream would prove to be a constant challenge to the tiny Protestant mission and success would be hard fought and potentially dangerous, but well worth the effort.  In an attempt to convince the ABCFM to send more missionaries he wrote:

 . . .  there are so many homes open to us now and the opportunities . . . in these homes are almost unlimited, yet, when our work begins to succeed and the priests discover what we are doing, there will be violent opposition and many if not nearly all of these homes may be closed to us.  This may happen - we must expect opposition and it will vary in intensity as the success of our work (F. M. Price, personal communication, January 1, 1902).

            Price’s fear of opposition by the Catholic Church and for the possibility of violence was not unfounded.  Undoubtedly, he was well aware of the evangelical battle between Protestants and Catholics which had been waged in Oceania for many decades.  Although the Catholics had long held a religious monopoly in the western Pacific, by the time Price arrived in Guam 1900 the two Churches had had numerous confrontations throughout the South Pacific, Hawaii, and Micronesia.

            The Catholics’ first foray into the South Pacific occurred in Tahiti..  In partial response to Captain James Cook’s 1768 exploration of the island group, Spain, uncomfortable with British presence in islands so close to their South American empire, sponsored a Catholic mission in 1774.  The mission faltered and was abandoned twelve months later (Garret, 1982).  Turmoil in Europe brought about by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars drew the attention of the Catholic Church away from Oceania for several decades thereafter.

            The next attempt to establish a Catholic mission in the western Pacific did not occur for another fifty years.  French Catholic members of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, wishing to gain ground lost in the French Revolution and fanned by the flames of Catholic revivalism, set their missionary sights on Oceania. In 1825, Pope Leo XII, cognizant of the move to transfer the leadership of foreign missions from Spain and Portugal to France, approved a plan to send French Catholic missionaries to Oceania for the first time.

            The site chosen for the first mission was the Hawaiian Islands which had already undergone Protestant missionization for seven years.  Hawaii was chosen for both religious and geopolitical reasons.  Hawaii’s importance to foreign trade in the Pacific Rim was becoming more evident.  The introduction of French Catholicism would perhaps open the door to increased influence by France in the area.  The Catholic missionaries formed an alliance with High Chief Boki, the Governor of Oahu, who had been baptized a Catholic on Freycinet’s French ship l’Uranie in 1819 (Garrett, 1982).

            The established Protestant mission did not sit idly by while the French Catholics attempted to establish an evangelical beach-head. Constrained by an official Congregationalist proclamation in favor of separation of church and state and for religious toleration, the Protestant missionaries argued from their pulpits that Roman Catholicism should be banned in obedience of civil laws which prohibited idolatry.  In addition, behind the scenes several missionaries, using their considerable influence with various Hawaiian chiefs, warned the Hawaiian hierarchy that the French Navy and the Pope of Rome had designs on their kingdom and that introduction of Catholicism into Hawaii would divide the kingdom (Garret, 1982).   The Protestant arguments won out.  Having lost the war of the words, the Catholic missionaries were deported on December 24, 1831.  This proved to be only a temporary victory for the Protestants.

            Using clandestine means a few years later a Catholic priest and brother infiltrated Hawaii.  Although both were English citizens they were sympathetic to the French missionization plans.  They secretly began to minister to local Catholics, especially those under Boki’s governance.  In 1839 the death of a local leader upset the precarious political situation and as a result some of Boki’s Catholic followers as well as French citizens were arrested, chained, and maltreated.

            On July 9 , 1839, Commandant Cyril Pierre Theodore, sailed his ship  l’Artemise to Honolulu and threatened dire military repercussions should the Hawaiian government fail to agree to afford Catholics and French subjects complete religious freedom.  The Hawaiian government relented and issued the requested proclamation.  This set the stage for slow gains by Catholics in Hawaii.

            The French had used similar gunboat diplomacy tactics to force the introduction of Catholicism in Tahiti only a year before.  But there the results were quite different.  Two French priests sought an audience with the young Protestant Tahitian queen, Pomare IV.  The primary LMS missionary, George Pritchard, along with various Protestant chiefs, all of whom wished to preserve both British influence and Protestant religious monopoly, brought pressure to bear on the impressionable queen to deport the priests.  She did so. 

            In June, 1838 a French gunboat arrived and the commander, Du Petit-Thouars, threatened bombardment if his condition of religious freedom, among others, was not met.  The queen capitulated.  War ships from both England and Spain faced-off in the waters off of the Tahitian capital.  A diplomatic solution between the two countries was finally reached in 1843 with England agreeing, despite the strong objection of the LMS, to concede France’s claim to exercise “protection” over Tahiti. 

            Armed rebellion ensued.  Tahitian Protestants fractionalized diluting their strength and the revolt was finally suppressed by the superior French forces.  The LMS licked their wounds and turned their mission over to the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society.  Over the next several decades there were other confrontations between the two Churches throughout the south Pacific.  Some of these confrontations, such as in Kiribati, turned violent, but in other islands, such as the Marquesas, the two coexisted in relative peace.

            As international attention turned toward Asia, the situation in Micronesia began to change fairly rapidly.  Although Guam had long served as the Spanish bastion in the western Pacific, with the exception of the other Mariana Islands, Catholic missionaries had not established any lasting missions in other Micronesian locales.  Spain began to rethink her strategy in the western Pacific as geopolitical considerations took on greater importance.  Germany, France, England, and the U.S. were increasing their presence throughout the Pacific region. 

            Although Spain’s international power was waning there were Spaniards who continued to encourage their mother country to renew her once great prominence in the Pacific.  One such proponent was Lt. Col. Felipe Maria de la Corte y Ruano Calderon who served as governor of Guam from May 16, 1855 until January 28, 1866.  He wrote perhaps the most thorough and insightful descriptions of the Marianas of any of the Spanish governors.  In De Corte’s writings, published in 1875 under the title, Memoria Descriptiva e Historica de las Islas Marianas, he lobbied for an increased Spanish presence in Micronesia.  His translated writings reveal the symbiotic relationship which frequently existed among religious, political, military, and economic interests.   De la Corte recommended as follows:

            We should thus state now that the Government should promote the propagation of our Faith on these [Micronesian] islands by means of missionaries sent there.  With the Bulls and Charters, and not revoked, there can be no contrary reason, but a duty of continuing that enterprise and we need merely study the means of carrying it out. 

            In our opinion this could be done by mere religious means, abiding by the circumstances of the times, without proceeding today as done two centuries back.  Following the principle of adopting the good even of evils, we feel that the system that the protestant propaganda on the same islands practices give a far more natural and sure success than sending war boats or other similar expeditions, which intimidating by their strength and manners could sow distrust instead of first founding the faith and later our peaceful domination in the whole missionary.

            The American mission of New York, spread on the Sandwich Islands, started with the missionary work in 1852, and to this effect acquired a galleon called Morning Star which up until now has exclusively been devoted to the service of these missions which have invaded the East Carolines, or Marshal and Kingmil Group, and the Vadan or Strong Islands, and Ascension in the Central ones, ceaselessly aspiring to go Westward until established in all.

. . . . Up until now, those missionaries have not passed Ascension, and according to their own writings in 1863 the fruit obtained on this island is still very small.  Consequently, there is still time to close their passage to progress towards the West, in which case they would not perhaps take long in receding.

            To do so, this small merchant type boat need merely go to fish and trade around these islands, taking the missionaries, and Christian Carolines of Saypan (sic) as auxiliaries can set up factories on the island peacefully and apparently where the missionaries can remain visiting them from the Marianas or Philippines two or more times a year, and without doubt progress will be considerable. . . For this second point, after factories and missionaries are established, they should be visited by warships which would examine ports and advantageous places where by agreements with the chiefs or island Tamores or in good deserts, those factories could be definitively fixed under our flag.  The natives would be attracted to its protection offering them guarantees of personal safety and in their interests, for they are never safe from the more or less justified aggressions of the Tamores or Chiefs.

            Because of this, force was not necessary nor any expenditure.  Merely when sending the boat, convenient points should be selected to found the trading settlements, and the missions and factories should be fixed frequently there, which would start at their own risk, so as not to arouse suspicion in the natives, and as soon as their use is revealed, and the land has been prepared by the missionaries and other residents, the factory would be visited by the warship stationed on Guam, and the national flag would be implanted by self authority if the territory recognizes no owner, or with the consent of the owner, and inducing the natives to resort to our flag, which would free them of many domestic vexations.  Taking Carolines established in Saypan on these voyages, the welfare enjoyed under our laws, a large number would without doubt adhere to our protection, thus extending our authority on the Marianas to these Archipelagos.

. . . . There are various important groups in the Carolines, namely Ruc or Holulin, Uleai, Yap and Palaos, so called, where 37 and 10,000 are calculated and if we possess them first indirectly and then completely, the Marianas or rather Micronesia would become an important possession politically and economically; this does not mean neglecting the enterprise which may lead to this result (pp. 456-459).

            The Spanish government’s opportunity to implement De la Corte’s recommendations, which they did so in substance but not in form, came about in a manner which nearly led to war between Spain and Germany and set the stage for a collision course between Protestant and Catholic missions.  Contrary to De la Corte’s admonition to ease into Micronesian territory through the initiation of Catholic missions,  on August, 1885  a Spanish ship arrived in Yap and her crew laid claim to the island in the name of their mother country.  Four days later, the German warship Iltis pulled into Yap and unfurled the German flag before the Spanish unfurled their own.   A stalemate resulted.  Much diplomat wrangling and militaristic posturing ensued.  The matter was finally referred to Pope Leo XIII for final resolution.  The Pope ruled in favor of Spain, awarding her the Caroline Islands.  The Germans were given possession of the Marshall Islands.

            Spain wasted little time in initiating Catholic missions.  In rapid succession, beginning on June 29, 1886, missions were established in Yap, Pohnpei, and Palau.  Later, in 1911, a mission was begun in the Marshall Islands.  There were no Protestant missions in Yap or Palau at the time so the major obstacle faced the Catholic missions’ on those islands was overcoming the natural suspicions of the islands’ residents.

            However, Pohnpei, site of the first Protestant mission to Micronesia in 1852, presented a much different situation.  By the time the Catholic missionaries arrived in Pohnpei on March 14, 1887, half the population were church members and most of the rest were heavily influenced by the Protestant Church (Hezel, 1991).  Understandably, the Catholic missionaries were not welcomed with open arms. Both sides were distrustful of the other.  “Their [the Spanish priests] coming, bearded and wearing long black soutanes and hoods, brought shudders into the ABCFM missionary community, which was prejudiced in advance by upbringing against all things Spanish, such as cooking with olive oil and medieval torture under the Inquisition.  The Spanish priests brought their own distaste for Anglo-Saxon heretics. . .” (Garrett, 1992, p. 299). The Spanish garrison stationed in Pohnpei heightened the level of distrust when they arrested the Congregationalist missionary, Edward Doane, and had him jailed in Manila.  Only through the official intervention by the U.S. government was Doane released and allowed to return to Pohnpei and continue his missionary activities.

            The level of anxiety on the part of the Protestants was heightened by the aggressive, “in-your-face” competitive approach taken by the Catholic Church from the very start of its mission on Pohnpei.  This overtly confrontational style set the tone for the relationship between the Churches for decades to come throughout Micronesia.  One example of the tactics employed by the Catholic mission was the annoying habit of constructing Catholic churches immediately adjacent to Protestant churches (Hezel, 1991).

            Unfortunately, the resultant tensions eventually erupted into violence.  In 1889 the Protestant mission moved its headquarters from the village of Kiti to Ohwa, near the Metalanim harbor on the eastern shore of the island. Land had been given to the mission and a church, school, and residence had been constructed.  In what appeared to the Protestants to be a blatant theft of their property, the Spanish governor had the ruling chief repudiate the deed to the property.  The Protestants were evicted and a small armed force moved in.  The Catholic mission began construction of a church.  The events proved too unsettling for Rev. Doane who took ill.  His assistant, Frank Rand, accompanied Doane to Hawaii for medical treatment, leaving only two female missionaries behind.  Doane died a month later.

            Back in Pohnpei the situation deteriorated rapidly.   In June, 1890, the Spanish garrison stationed at Ohwa were caught off-guard by a group of conspiring Protestant Pohnpeians.  Over 30 Spanish soldiers were killed.  The Catholic priests were saved through the efforts of Miss Palmer, one of two the remaining female Protestant missionaries on the island.  She hid the priests in the mission’s dormitory for several days until they could escape to a Spanish ship sent to quell the rebellion.

            The remaining garrison threatened severe repercussions against the rebellious islanders.  This only served to further inflame their passions.  Over the next few months, successive waves of Spanish reinforcements tried time and again to defeat the Pohnpeians.  They were finally successful, but at great cost.  Somewhere between 118 and 350 Spanish soldiers were killed (Hezel, 1991 and Crawford, 1967).  Official blame for the uprising was placed on the Protestant mission.  The two remaining American missionaries were deported and the Protestant mission closed.  Not until 1900, the same year the Guam Protestant mission opened, was the ABCFM allowed to reopen their Pohnpei mission. 

            With this history in mind, Rev. Price was convinced, as were most of his fellow Congregationalists, that the Catholic Church represented no less a threat to the Chamorros than had pagan religions to the Hawaiians and Micronesians.  On January 8, 1901 he wrote to Rev. James Burton:

I am glad you have seen the conditions in Spanish speaking, Catholic country.  There is no need to tell you how much the people need the gospel . . .  We did not receive a very hospitable welcome [on Guam] but God has His people here and this island will be delivered from the cruel yoke of an oppressive religion which traffics in the souls of men, gives them no help towards leading pure lives on earth and holds out only delusive hope for the future. 

            Price’s successor, Reverend Case, did not find matters much improved during his tenure.  He too was critical of the Catholic Church which he considered little better than a bastion of pagans.  In response to an inquiry from the Boston headquarters, on May 1, 1906, Reverend Case wrote of the Catholic Church,

You ask me about the work of the Catholic Church in Guam.  As far as my observation goes, I am led to believe that the work of this church is now as it has been in the past very superficial.  The whole religious life of the people is stationary, varying little, I fancy, from what it was a hundred years and more ago, and is saturated through and through with the most tenacious sort of superstition.  The worship of perhaps three-quarters of the natives is little removed from pure idolatry.  The church by its processions, images, and forms keeps the people interested and happy in their childish devotion, but does almost nothing to stir up an inner Christian life.  I don not know that the priesthood or the people as a whole are immoral, but they are terribly irresponsible in matters of upright daily living and very blind to spiritual things.  It seems to me the shallow religious life in which the people have been brought up is largly (sic) responsible for these conditions.  I think the people themselves are capable of better things, but for the present they are very much under the thumb of the priests.

            In contrast to the depth of Catholic conviction among the Chamorros, the official presence of the Catholic Church on Guam upon the arrival of the American administration was rather meager. The island’s 10,000 Catholics were served by three Spanish Augustinian Recollects, one Filipino priest, and an elderly Chamorro priest, Padre Jose Torres Palomo (Sullivan, 1957). 

            The weakened position of the Catholic Church was dealt another blow when, in his first official proclamation issued on August 10, 1899, Governor Leary, himself a Protestant, wrote:

All political rights heretofore exercised by the Clergy in dominating the people of the Island, are hereby abolished, and everyone is guaranteed absolute freedom of worship and full protection in the lawful pursuits of life, as long as that protection is deserved by actual submission to and compliance with the requirements of the Government of the United States (Cite).

            Other orders soon followed.  Judging the Augustinian Recollects to be poor religious examples due to the fact that they condoned concubinage and themselves fathered illegitimate children, that same month Governor Leary ordered their removal from Guam leaving only the aging Father Palomo behind to minister to his Catholic congregation.  He also established public schools in which religious instruction was prohibited (Rogers, 1995).

            Conditions for Catholics improved substantially under Commander Seaton Schroeder, who replaced Leary on July 19, 1900.  Schroeder was more sympathetic to Catholic sensitivities and  within days of assuming command lifted the prohibition against religious ceremonies honoring village saints.   In August 1901, he allowed the landing of three Spanish Capuchin priests who were transferred from the Catholic mission on Yap which had been turned over to German Capuchins after Germany’s purchase of the Carolines from Spain.  Rev. Price perceived the arrival of the Spanish priests as a deliberate effort by Catholic hierarchy to blunt Protestant progress. “Three Spanish friars are now on a ship in the harbor waiting to be landed.  Our work is succeeding as our enemies testify by their activity” (F. M. Price, personal communication, August 12, 1901). He accused them for spearheading opposition to the Protestant mission.  “The opposition is more marked and effective than ever.  The Spanish Friars are at the bottom of it and ought to be expelled from the island for they are a menace to the peace of the island being hearty haters of everything American” (F.M. Price, personal communication, April 15, 1903). 

            Further, he was convinced that the Capuchins were behind a plan to undermine the Protestant mission.  From time to time Protestant services were disturbed by the heckling of outsiders.  Both Reverends Price and Case suspected that the priests were behind such disturbances.  Price was relieved when Gov. Schroeder and his family began attending Sunday evening services.  He felt that the governor’s presence would help to “restrain these rude fellows of the baser sort” (F.M. Price, personal communication, Nov. 3, 1901). 

            A thorough reading of the Congregationalist missionary letters reveal very little evidence that the level of violence feared by Rev. Price ever materialized.  Heckling and throwing rocks on the metal roof of the church appear to have been the primary methods of displaying displeasure with the mission.  Protestant children were sometimes subjected to Catholic verbal taunts such as being called puercos, or pigs (Garrett,1992) and the menacing chant “Catholic, Catholic ring your bell.  Protestant, Protestant, go to hell”  (H. Gutierrez, personal communication, December 7, 1996).  At times priests would openly preach against the Protestants and threaten excommunication to those who dared attend Protestant services. 

            This lack of violence may not be an accurate gauge of the  passions involved as much as it is a testament to the Navy’s ability to keep the situation under control.  After all, in the Philippines where U.S. military presence was scarce in outlying areas, Filipino Protestant converts were killed and in one isolated incident a Catholic priest was accused (Clymer, 1986).

            In fact, there were times on Guam when the Naval government had to step in to quell disturbances.  In a February 16, 1903 letter from Price to his Boston superiors he reported that “[o]ne man was arrested and put in jail for throwing stones at the church and since then all has been quiet.”  Several months later, a disturbance flared.  Apparently a group of Protestants was publicly evangelizing in a western village, a common practice among Protestants. An altercation ensued when the Protestants were confronted by a group of Catholic Chamorros.   They may have been an exchange of blows.  Price expected the Governor to intercede on the Protestants’ behalf.  Two weeks later, to his surprise and dismay, Schroeder’s replacement, Governor William E. Sewell, issued a General Order prohibiting Protestants from publicly evangelizing in a village unless and until they bought land there and constructed a building (F. M. Price, personal communication, October 2, 1903).  However, Catholics could continue to conduct their public village processions honoring their patron saints.  Price was convinced that Sewell issued the Order in direct response to a demand from the priests and he branded the governor a Catholic sympathizer (F.M. Price, personal communication, March 22, 1904).

            Price writes that upon the issuance of this Order, “. . . the jubilant priests went to their people and they thinking that they had the protection of the Governor in their violence, boldly stoned our church in Agana and attacked our people in the streets, on the way home from the service”  (F. M. Price, personal communication, October 2, 1904).  Price reported that the disturbances only abated when the Governor summoned the Catholic priests and warned them that unless the violence ceased the Protestants would again be permitted to publicly evangelize under the protected watch of the naval militia.  Price viewed this as a shallow victory for his church which was spared physical persecution only at the expense of their most effective means of spreading the Protestant gospel. 

            The Catholic Church achieved much greater success in undermining the Protestant mission through much more subtle means than overt violence.  A number of new religious societies were formed on Guam to promote greater Catholic solidarity (Rogers, 1995).  In 1906 five American Catholic nuns arrived on island.  They immediately started personally visiting the homes of the Catholic parishioners. Taking note of their activities, Rev. Case wrote that “[t]hey bring something of the American spirit with them, but from what I have heard of their work, I judge that their main effort is to keep the people loyal to the Catholic Church (H. E.. B. Case, personal communication, May 1, 1906).  He went on the contend that “t]hey are teaching the children certain of our Protestant hymns, perhaps to take some of the edge off our sword. You can imagine what a wooden interpretation they would give to ‘Nearer my God to Thee’ . . .”

            Aside from the prohibition against public evangelizing, perhaps the greatest retardant to Protestant growth was the failure of their schools to attract large numbers of students.  Again, the Catholics, along with the public schools system, proved successful in undermining the early gains enjoyed by the Protestants in the area of education.

            From the time of their first foreign missions Protestants placed great emphasis upon education. The establishment of a mission school often followed closely behind the establishment of a church.  Initially, education was merely an extension of evangelism.  Conversion depended on a keen personal understanding of the Bible and such familiarity could only be gained by actually reading the Bible.  Therefore, would-be converts had to be literate.  Mission schools also served as the training grounds for future local missionaries. 

            However, with time the Protestant mission schools became an effective means to capture the attention and imagination of the local community.  These schools provided an all-important link to the western world and to the tools essential for conducting western commerce and trade.   Along with the English language these schools were heavily imbued with those Protestant principles which were also closely identified as integral expressions of American culture: hard work, individualism, and self-sufficiency.  Students who acquired the English language and learned something of the “American way” often had an advantage over non-English speakers in the growing monied economy.

            Unlike Hawaii and most of the Micronesian islands where the Protestant schools enjoyed an educational monopoly, on Guam the Protestant schools faced almost immediate competition.  Since the days of Father Sanvitores the Catholics had operated schools on the island.  Although with the forced departure of the Spanish Recollects the Catholics apparently either ceased or severely reduced school operations for a period of time, with the arrival of new personnel the Catholic Church wasted little time in attempting to recapture their educational hold on the islanders.

            The greatest source of educational competition came from the Naval administration itself.  Gov. Leary’s order establishing a public education system on Guam and mandating compulsory attendance for all children between the ages of seven and twelve led to the eventual proliferation of public schools on the island.  The compulsory education order also gave great impetus to the Protestants, Catholics, and the government alike to expand educational opportunities for Chamorro children.  All three vied for students.

            Due to the lack of teachers on Guam the mandatory attendance order was not fully enforced for several years (Rogers, 1995).  Public schools were slow to start.  With severe personnel problems of their own in the early years of the American administration, Catholics were in no position to expand their school system on island. Rev. Price recognized an opportunity to gain a competitive edge over both the Catholic and public schools and worked diligently to get the mission school up and running.  He pleaded with the ABCFM for teachers and sufficient funds to establish a mission school.  Price reported to the Board that the demand for American education was so intense that even Catholic Chamorros begged him to open a day school (F. M. Price, personal communication, May 20, 1901).  His entreaties continued unabated. “The demand for the school is so great that even without teachers we must open soon, both for boys and girls.  The desire to have their children educated is one of the hopeful signs among the Protestants” (F. M. Price, personal communication, December 19, 1902).

            Undoubtedly, these parents saw definite advantages for their children to learn English.  Rev. Case wrote several years later that “the attraction of our school for the families of our mission church is the giving of food and a little clothing and the opportunity to learn English.  The ability to speak a little English marks the educated person among them” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, February 5, 1907).

            Within the first year of the mission Mrs. Price offered English lessons to interested students  (F.M. Price, personal communication, October 11, 1901).  Soon thereafter a day school opened in Hagatna.  Jose Taitano’s daughters, Ana and Rosa, eventually operated the school.  The enrollment fluctuated between 20 and 30 students.  By 1903, a boarding school was opened for older students who could be trained to assist in the evangelism of the Protestant faith (Forbes,1997).  The boarding school eventually housed twelve students (H. E. B. Case, personal communication, April 22, 1907).

            The Catholic hierarchy, seeking to blunt the Protestant’s educational progress on Guam, worked hard to get their schools back into full operation again.  With the arrival of the Capuchin fathers from Yap in 1901, along with arrival of five Catholic nuns in 1906, the Catholic schools resumed operation and flourished. 

            Despite the pleas from both Reverends Price and Case, the ABCFM failed to send out American teachers.  The Protestant schools were staffed exclusively with Chamorro teachers while both the public and Catholic schools were staffed primarily with American instructors.  Because the American instructors spoke English fluently and were more knowledgeable about everything American, they were the more desirable teachers.  The Protestant schools soon lost their competitive edge.   By 1908 there were two hundred students enrolled in Catholic schools, fifteen hundred in public schools, while only thirty attended the Protestant schools (H. E. B. Case, personal communication, January 22, 1908).  A frustrated Case wrote to the ABCFM: “No Catholics will come to our services and none of their children are in our schools. The public schools minister to the educational needs of those Catholic children who do not attend the Catholic school, while our schools are necessarily confined to the children and members of our Protestant church” (H. E. B. Case, personal communication, February 5, 1907).

            Rev. Case was forced to close the boarding school in the latter part of 1908.  He wrote to the ABCFM that “[t]here is not the demand for this school that there was in Mr. Price’s time, for then our mission had the only good schools in the Island. . . I am of the opinion that our mission has lost much of its educational opportunity .  .   .”  (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, October 21, 1908).

            Thus, by the close of the first decade of the twentieth century both overt and subtle actions on the part of Catholic officials had undermined the Protestant efforts on Guam.  Just as detrimental though, if not more so, was the sheer cultural and psychological impact of the Catholic Church on the Chamorro populace.  Those who left the Catholic fold for the Protestant Church frequently did so under the very real threat of social ostracism from both their families and the community at large.  Even providing assistance to Protestants could result in an individual being labeled a Protestant sympathizer.  For this reason, at times Protestants had to be somewhat surreptitious in their actions.  The Adelup property was purchased through an agent “because no one would sell us land unless he was willing to incur the displeasure of the priest and evoke curses upon himself” (F.M. Price, personal communication, January 17, 1901).

            Rev. Price was concerned that as persecution increased, “the weak ones will be frightened away” (F.M. Price, personal communication, October 11, 1901).  Unfortunately, the missionary letters do not reveal a great deal of information about the personal hardships experienced by those Chamorros who converted to Protestantism. The letters were written from the missionaries’ perspective and offer little insight of the Protestant Chamorro perspective. Recent oral interviews with Protestant Chamorros revealed that, with some regularity, converted Protestant Chamorros indeed found their way back to the Catholic fold  The most frequent reasons cited were the intense level of familial alienation and the desire to marry a Catholic.  The Catholic Church would not permit a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic.  The extent of oral interviews conducted to explore the social effects of Protestant conversion has been minimal and not nearly large enough to draw any concrete conclusions.  This is an area richly deserving much more research to balance out the saga of the Chamorros’ early contact with Protestantism.

            The missionaries’ letters do reveal their observation that after the initial conversion of a few families and individuals to Protestantism the rate of conversion dropped off considerably and new members tended to come from within the established Protestant families rather than from converted Catholics (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, March 20, 1905).

            Even within the Protestant Church sins attributed to Catholic influence continued to plague the mission.  Within months of the Congregationalists mission’s closing, Case wrote that there was great discord within the church due to the fact that “one [member] has been guilty of concupiscence and another is seeking to marry a woman who is seeking a divorce, and, as she is a Catholic, he must deny his faith to marry her.. . . Other members have taken a willful attitude about drinking, denying their church vows for total abstinence” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, January 15, 1909).

            The end result of both the formal and informal attacks by Catholics on the Protestant adherents was an intense feeling of social ostracism.  “There is a wide gulf of separation between us and the Roman Catholic community around us.  And you may be sure that the Catholic Church is doing all that it can to make the gulf a fixed one.  The have us crowded into our little corner and wish to make our circle of influence as small a one as possible” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, April 10, 1906).

            Faced with nine years of discouraging results despite arduous toil the ABCFM decided to close the Guam mission.  On March 28, 1910, Rev. and Mrs. Case departed the island without any identified replacements.  The Chamorro Protestant community was on its own before the power and prestige of the Catholic Church.  Perhaps only the subsequent decision by the General Baptists to resume the Guam mission saved Protestantism from half a century of near certain religious irrelevance.
 

Chapter 3 - Catholicism vs. Christianity

            Soon after the arrival of Rev. Price on Guam in December 1900, internal dissension threatened to undermine his efforts and those of his predecessors, Jose and Luis Custino, in converting Chamorros from Catholicism to Protestantism.  The issue in contention was one which had also been debated on a national level by the various Protestant denominations:  whether Catholicism should be considered a Christian faith. The struggle to resolve this issue on a national level resulted in much discord and anguish within the Protestant Church and stirred up animosity and distrust toward Protestants within the Catholic Church.  On Guam the conflict divided the Protestant missionaries’ allegiances and thwarted their efforts to gain the support of the Naval administration.  In addition to the official actions of the Catholic Church to undermine the Protestant mission and the strong psychological and sociological pressures placed on Chamorros to remain faithful Catholic adherents, the divisiveness caused by this debate further debilitated the Protestants’ efforts to win converts.

            The first hint that something was amiss with the Guam mission surfaced in Rev. Price’s August 2, 1901 letter to the ABCFM.  In reference to Ms. Mary Channell, a missionary who had accompanied the Prices to Guam, he wrote somewhat cryptically upon her imminent departure from the island due to illness that, “[s]he is not at all fitted for missionary service on this island both on the score of health and for other reasons, very serious, which may be given if the question of her return ever comes up.  Do not return her to this field without consulting the Mission” (F.M. Price, personal communication, August 2, 1901).        

            A subsequent letter from Price to the Board cast a clearer light on the nature of Price’s discomfort with Ms. Channel.  “She did not seem to appreciate the spiritual needs of the people here and she remarked again and again while with us that she wished we did not have to work for a people who had a religion already. . . . You will see from the above remarks that the young women who come hither must see the spiritual needs of those who are in the catholic fold” (F.M. Price, personal communication, January 1, 1902).  His further remarks on the topic of Catholicism verses Christianity leaves no doubt where he stood on the issue:

There are many, I am persuaded who are like Miss Channell, in this respect, and who might make good missionaries in other fields, but who would not fit in well here.  I do not wonder at this when I read in our religious papers statements commending the Catholics.  Toleration is one thing but commendation is quite another.  Those who come here ought to see that the gospel is as much needed here as in heathen lands, and they ought to have hearts of pity for lost Catholics just as surely as for lost heathens.  The name by which we describe the lost signifies little.  The lost are lost . . .” (F.M. Price, personal communication, January 1, 1902).

            This passage highlights the fact that the answer to the question of whether Catholicism should be considered a Christian faith was debated on a much broader level than just Guam.  Although Protestant Churches had long debated the matter, the importance of formulating a definitive response heightened with the U.S.’ victory over Spain which, as a consequence, brought three predominantly Catholic territories under U.S. administration:  Cuba, the Philippines, and Guam.  Was the ABCFM and other Protestant missionary groups justified in sending missionaries to countries where the worship of Christ was already an integral part of the natives’ religion?

            At the dawning of the 20th century most Protestant denominations responded to this question in the affirmative, although some felt stronger about the matter than others.  One extreme was perhaps represented by President McKinley himself, who was often considered a staunch supporter of Protestant missions abroad.  He wrote of his painful decision to keep the Philippines in the face of a popular Filipino revolution seeking independence, that “there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died” (Pratt, 1936, p. 316).  McKinley thus failed to give even token acknowledgement that a Catholic Filipino might bear any common Christian traits with Protestants.

            The ABCFM held a similar opinion of the situation in Micronesia and Guam.  In 1898 a Board Committee wrote to the ABCFM that the Spanish American War “opened the door wide for the prosecution of missionary effort in our Micronesian field.  With religious liberty restored in the Carolines, and ‘the American flag floating over the Ladrones,’ our missionaries may work unterrified by papal interference and Spanish treachery . . . This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes” (Pratt, 1936, p. 303).

            Although these rather extreme views may have been held by a majority of Protestants, there were those individuals and denominations who took a more conciliatory approach.  They credited the Catholic Church for her historic role in at least introducing the concept of a Christian God, blocking the advance of Islam, romanizing the vernacular alphabet, introducing education, and raising the level of civilization.  An editor for the Methodist Philippine Christian Advocate wrote that the early Catholic missionaries were “as sincere and devoted as any who ever went out in the name of the Master” ( Clymer, 1986, p. 95).

            However, even those who gave such credit to the Catholics felt justified in sending Protestant missionaries to Catholic territories since Catholicism still represented to them a deficient form of Christianity (Clymer, 1986).  This feeling was based on a number of Catholic practices which were particularly objectionable to Protestants.  Throughout their letters both Reverends Price and Case noted to the Board many of these same offensive traits on Guam. 

            Three perceived deficiencies predominated:  First was the Catholic Church’s failure to present to people the true terms of salvation.  For Protestants, salvation was only available to those who made a conscious effort to invite Christ into their lives.  This was an individual decision made after informed deliberations supported by a thorough understanding of the Bible and was not guaranteed through a mere ceremonious baptism as was the perceived situation with Catholics.

            To make matters worse in the eyes of most Protestants, the Catholic Church discouraged the reading of the Bible in an attempt to keep people ignorant.  By doing so, the Catholic Church was also preventing people from a true Christian conversion.  The often-repeated story of the Jose Custino’s conversion underscored the importance Protestants placed on reading the Bible.

He [Jose Custino] has been a sea traveler, having sailed almost all over the Pacific on a whaling vessel.  Of course he was a Roman Catholic, but while sailing among the South Sea Islands, some unknown servant of the Master gave him a Bible printed in the Spanish language.  On one occasion, while reading this Bible in the hull of the vessel, he came to the blessed verse, John 3:16.  He read it and the Spirit opened his eyes to get a glimpse of its meaning.  Falling on his knees he gave his heart to God.  He was truly converted. . . Ever since that experience of salvation he has been a diligent student of the Scriptures and is able to quote long passages in English, Spanish and Chamorro” (Carr, 1988, p. 381).

Thus, for Protestants the failure of the Catholic Church to share the Bible with the people was both a symptom and a cause of Catholic theological deficiencies (Clymer, 1986).

            A second fault was the Catholic Church’s apparent acceptance of tradition and other elements extrinsic to the Bible as bases for faith equal to the Scriptures, to the extent that even the notion of monotheism became hazy (Clymer, 1986).  For the most part, Protestants objected to the incorporation of indigenous rituals into their own services.  Such was not the situation with Catholics.  Indeed, the Catholic Church has always shown a greater willingness to incorporate indigenous rites and rituals into its official ceremonies than has the Protestant Church.   Protestant missionaries have generally been considered more literal, dogmatic, and legalistic in their dealings with the natives (Varg, 1977), than their Catholic counterparts who generally are more accepting of indigenous cultural practices (Swain, 1995).

            These approaches reflect very different philosophical underpinnings of Catholic and Protestant missionaries at the end of the 19th century.  Catholics believed that all people possessed the latent ability to gain insights into their divine nature which had been suppressed by savage cultures  (Swain, 1995).  Gaining this insight did not necessarily preclude the use of some indigenous practices. Indeed, working within a familiar cultural framework could perhaps expedite and enhance the process.  By contrast, Protestant missionaries were greatly affected by the Reformed doctrine of the “depravity of Man” which could only be eliminated by the wholesale exclusion of all vestiges of pagan practices.  Protestants were thus more prone to condemn indigenous practices as being “earthy, sensual and devilish” (Swain, 1995, p. 194).

            In addition, for many Protestants the Catholics’ fascination with Mary and with the multitude of statues representing various patron saints bordered on polytheism and idolatry.  Rev. Price, quoting another missionary stationed in Mindanao, Philippines, wrote of the difficulty in separating Catholics from their beloved Mary and their saints. “It may be that we shall find, among these heathen tribes [in Mindanao], a better reception for the gospel than in places burned over by the Catholics.  It is far more difficult to dislodge the worship of Mary and the saints, than of the heathen divinities, especially in these islands where the people have little attachments to their gods . . .” (F.M. Price, March 10, 1902).  Rev. Case observed that Catholic Chamorros were “saturated through and through with the most tenacious sort of superstition.  The worship of . . . the natives is little removed from pure idolatry (H.E.B. Case, May 1, 1906).          

            The third perceived deficiency was the Catholic Church’s failure to relate religion to living a moral life.  The Protestant Church adopted a rigid code of moral behavior which included total abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and pre-marital sex.  Catholics’ approach to such matters appeared to Protestants to be much too malleable.  For example, Protestants believed that Catholics attached no apparent stigma to gambling or drinking intoxicants.  Some Catholic publications even accepted alcohol advertisements (Clymer, 1986).    On Guam, Rev. Price lamented that church members had denied “their church vows for total abstinence [of alcohol]” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, January 15, 1909).  On the matter of gambling, Protestant missionaries related how Filipino parishioners would bring their fighting cocks to church and allow them to drink the holy water and eat the eucharistic wafer to enhance their chances of winning (Clymer, 1986).

            More appalling to the Protestants was the alleged prevalence of priestly immorality. Priest allegedly oppressed parishioners in order to enrich themselves and to maintain power by charging excessive fees for their services, thus keeping the people poor.  Many Protestants believed that such behavior on the part of the priests was part of a well-articulated plot to keep the masses ignorant and superstitious. 

            Consistent with this perception, Rev. Price in his second letter to the ABCFM reported that:

A native told me that it was useless for a native to accumulate property under Spanish rule for just as soon as one had saved a little and began to prosper he became a mark for the priest whose aim seemed to keep the people poor.  One man told me that during all the time of Spanish occupation of the island he never knew them to contribute anything for the relief of the people such as the American government did after the cyclone . . .” (F.M. Price, personal communication, December 18, 1900).

            Within the Protestant Church there was a widely held belief that priests themselves frequently lived immoral lives.  Stories of priestly sexual transgressions abounded.  On Guam allegations that the Augustinian Recollects had themselves fathered children and tolerated concubinage among their parishioners led Governor Leary to order their removal from Guam (Rogers, 1995).

            The ongoing argument over whether Catholicism was a Christian religion also impacted tremendously on the perceived role Protestants and Catholics should play in America’s expansion into Oceania and Asia.  Central to the United States’ plans to administer the newly acquired Spanish territories was the desire to inculcate American culture and American notions of a democratic society.  Many Protestants believed that they alone held the divine right to minister to the religious and social needs of these territories’ inhabitants. 

            Perhaps the most influential person to give voice to such a position was Josiah Strong, a Congregational minister, who in 1885 wrote the widely acclaimed and most influential book, Our Country.  In his book Strong passionately and articulately presented his theory that Protestant missionaries were destined to establish a strong home base in the developing American west from which they would eventually Christianize the world.  Strong feared that rapid changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution were accelerating the pace of history so significantly that man could not adequately adjust.  Drastic social changes would ensue and threaten widespread revolution.  Strong believed that the Christian Church (i.e. Protestant Church) was probably the only force which could halt this eventuality (LaFebre, 1963).

            Success was by no means guaranteed though.  Certain forces within the United States threatened to undermine the efforts of the Protestant Church.  These forces, lumped under the general term “socialism,” included immigrants, intemperance, immoral city life, Mormonism, and Roman Catholicism.  He warned that the socialists’ approach to relieving the growing tension was doomed to fail because they were attempting “to solve the problem of suffering without eliminating the factor of sin” (LeFebre, 1963, p. 77).  He clearly shared the feeling that Catholicism often failed to incorporate moral values into their evangelistic efforts.  Although Strong’s views were considered extreme, members of most Protestant denominations shared his conviction that great efforts should be expended to Christianize the world, including Catholic lands, in a single generation.  These denominations also shared his idea that religious principles were inextricably intertwined with political ideals, most especially the predominating contention that military involvement might be justified to ensure both religious and political freedoms.  Many Protestants failed to see any irony to such a position.

            Thus thirteen years after the publication of Our Country, the Spanish American War presented a unique opportunity to further the goals of the great Christian advance while simultaneously thwarting the influence of the Catholic Church.  Many Protestant publications reveled in the opportunity at hand.  In the Congregationalists’ newspaper, Advance, the author queried:

Will Protestantism enter Cuba and show a different spirit?  Will it go there with material help in one hand and spiritual help in the other? . . . The churchmen of our land should be prepared to invade Cuba as soon as the army and navy open the way, to invade Cuba in a friendly, loving Christian spirit, with bread in one hand and the Bible in the other, and win the people to Christ by Christ-like service.  Here is a new mission field right at our doors which will soon be open.  Shall we not enter it?  (Advance, XXXV, 657 (May 19, 1898).

            The Advance also lent its support to the prospect of acquiring the Philippines.  “Morally and religiously, we should not shun an opportunity to lift up a barbarous people . . . Who knows but that this is a plan of Providence to bring the land favored of God and flowing with religious speech into touch with a land in need of the Gospel (Advance, XXXV, 658 (May 19, 1898)?

            The Religious Telescope supported the proposition that divine providence had opened the doors for Christian evangelism into Spanish territories and the refusal to unleash the Christian gospel would be greatly offensive to God.

The acquiring of the Ladrone, the Caroline, and the Philippine islands, and even Cuba, Porto (sic) Rico, and the Canaries, as the result of the war into which Spain, by her barbarities in Cuba, force us, will be no violation of the spirit of isolation . . . [To refuse such responsibilities] would be to render the nation guilty of a great crime in the sight of high Heaven. The times are ripe for us to extend the blessings of free government to all those portions of the earth which God and the fortunes of war render it reasonably obligatory upon us to extend them to (Religious Telescope, LXIV, 931 (July 27, 1898)).

Clearly, in the minds of many Protestants, Catholics lacked both the moral integrity and patriotic fervor to support America’s battle with Spain. 

            The Catholic Church vehemently disagreed with these  assertions.  The Church considered herself the anointed church of Jesus Christ and viewed her leader, the pope, as the religious heir to the Apostle Peter who succeeded Christ as the Church’s head following Christ’s crucifixion.  Since the days of the 16th century reformers Luther and Calvin, the more extreme Catholics viewed all Protestants as heretics and therefore, non-Christians.  Catholic animosity and suspicion toward Protestantism closely mirrored that of Protestants toward the Catholic Church. 

            In fact, the level of suspicion was so high that some Catholics questioned the very motives behind the war with Spain. Some attributed the war efforts were instigated by “bloodthirsty preachers” of the Protestant churches (Pratt, 1936).

            Although many Catholics initially opposed the war, once war became inevitable, Catholics allied themselves behind American troops.  However, unlike Protestants, American Catholics drew a distinction between Catholicism and Spain and viewed the conflict as a battle between nations and not between religions.  Shortly before the war began the Catholic Herald wrote “In a few weeks the chains forged by Spain will be loosed by American bravery, and the world will wonder why the United States tolerated them so long (Catholic Herald, (April 9, 30, May 28, 1898)).  Once hostilities between the U.S. and Spain began American Catholic archbishops issued a circular stating that regardless of any prior contrary positions there could “now be no two opinions as to the duty of every loyal American citizen” (Pratt, 1936, p. 288). 

            Following Spain’ defeat in the Spanish-American War many Catholics took strong umbrage to suggestions that Protestant missionaries should be sent to the newly acquired territories for purposes of “Christianizing” the predominately Catholic inhabitants.  American Catholics were not about to sit idly on the sidelines while Protestant denominations sent their missionaries to heretofore Catholic fields.  Many Catholics argued that instead of sending Protestant missionaries the U.S. should build upon the existing Catholic Christian foundation in these territories and send American priests to lead the already established Catholic parishes and from there expand the boundaries of Catholic Christianity. “The warmth and flow and strength of Catholicism, so fitly represented in America, will as easily conquer not only those who are Catholic to the marrow of their bones but likewise the Mongolian, the Negro, and the Malay” (Pratt, 1936, p. 311). 

            Catholics, as well as some non-Catholics, feared that allowing both Protestant and Catholic missionaries to evangelize in the new island possessions would subject the U.S. to ridicule.  “The efforts of the [Protestant] Missionary Societies to send a bevy of missionaries to our newly acquired possessions will result only in discrediting Americanism among the people” (Catholic World, LXVII, 563 (July 1898)).  Those who held this view believed that establishing both Protestant and Catholic missions in the same field was unnecessarily duplicative and, because of the adversarial relationship between the Churches, could undermine attempts to inculcate the American culture and the U.S.’ ideals of democracy.

            In Guam this prediction came to pass. The evangelical rivalry threatened the Naval administration’s support of the Protestant mission.  Reverend Case wrote of a conversation he had with Governor Dorn, who on occasion attended the Protestant mission’s services.  “He has expressed his interest in having all the Americans attend [our services], and, with his help, perhaps something may be accomplished.  He has assured us, however, that his sympathies are all with the Catholics.  He is not alone in this viewpoint, for there are many of the Americans who think that our mission is a parasite on the religious situation”  (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, January 22, 1908).

            Interestingly, a year later Case appears to have wavered on his heretofore steadfast position against the Catholic Church.  He wrote:

. . . I should probably be more eager for numbers and seek to draw away more from the ranks of the Roman Church.  This is the main criticism of the Americans of our mission, that we are a proselytizing agency in the worst sense of the word; and sometimes I have been in doubt as to the propriety of our efforts to win those outside our church.

However, immediately afterwards he wrote:

Careful thinking, however, brushes aside these doubts and shows the essential righteousness of our cause. (H.E.B. Case, personal communications, January 15, 1909).

            The missionaries’ letters give no indication that Case’s apparent softening  in his position toward the Catholic Church resulted from an improved relationship between the two Churches on Guam.  In fact, a review of the literature concerning the history of Congregationalists’ successor, the General Baptist Church,  refutes such a notion.  Rather, Rev. Case’s slight shift in position may reflect one of two factors, or a combination of both.  On the one hand the comment can be attributed to a frustrated Protestant missionary who was both tired of and depressed from five years of unrewarding work, and who was therefore grasping for any justification to end the mission thus allowing him to return to a less hostile environment.  His loathing of Catholicism may simply have been overridden by his own self-interest.  On the other hand, it may reflect a more ecumenical approach to mission work, a movement in its embryonic stage, which slowly gained momentum within the United States and Europe.   

            The Protestant denomination most receptive to this approach was the Episcopalian Church.  In fact, this was the very Church recommended by Rev. Case to replace the Congregationalists.  In a letter to the ABCFM, in which he discussed the possibility of transferring the Guam mission to the Episcopalian Church, he wrote that “the ritual of the Episcopal Church, supplemented by the true preaching of the gospel, would I believe, be very attractive to them.  To some of them, the simple congregational services seem rather barren beside the more elaborate ritual of the Catholic Church” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, February 19, 1908).

            Indeed, the ABCFM approached the Episcopalian’s about the possibility of taking over the Guam mission. In response to this entreaty, in December, 1909 Bishop Charles H. Brent, the Episcopal Missionary bishop to the Philippines, visited Guam.  Rev. Case wrote of Bishop Brent’s visit:

He is convinced that there is a place for Protestant missionary work here.  In his opinion, more and more, the Catholic church (sic) is bound to show the disintegrating effects of contact with American life, and there should be some exponent of democratic Christianity to attract those who will drift from the mediaeval church.  But he desires in every way possible to work in harmony with the Catholic church, and to that end, he will try to persuade the higher powers in the Catholic church to send American priests to supplant the Spanish priest now in the Island (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, December 11, 1909).

            In the end, the Episcopalians declined the invitation to take over the Guam mission.  Instead, the General Baptist, a denomination not yet sympathetic to an ecumenical approach to Catholicism, assumed the reigns of the mission.  Up through World War II neither church appears to have substantially moderated their position toward the other and both Churches continued to send missionaries to Guam.  Protestant and Catholic missionaries continued to eye each other with distrust and sometimes disdain.  Although with time a level of mutual tolerance developed, for years to come the issue of whether Catholicism was a Christian faith woulf remain unresolved both on Guam and at a national level.
 

Chapter 4 - The impact of geopolitical events in the Pacific on the Protestants’ Guam Mission

            The opening sentence of Rev. Price’s first letter sent from Guam back to the ABCFM arguably provides considerable insight into the view shared by many Congregationalists’ towards official U.S. action in the Pacific.  On December 17, 1900 he wrote: “We were so affected by the bad news [of the typhoon] that we could hardly rejoice that McKinley was [re]elected president and that the island people, therefore, would have his wise help for another four years”  (F.M. Price,  personal communication, December 17, 1900).  This statement carries with it a tacit if not overt acceptance of the rich history of American expansion into the Pacific region which culminated during President William McKinley’s first presidential term in office with the annexation of Hawaii and the seizure of the Philippines and Guam.  Perhaps too, it signifies the approval of a unique relationship forged between the official U.S. policy of Pacific imperialism and the goals of the Protestant Church to actively evangelize in the new Pacific territories and the neighboring nations.  Both U.S. officialdom and the Protestant hierarchy justified their actions in terms of a spiritual manifest destiny shrouded in an aura of unquestioned self-righteousness.

            Price was probably unaware at the onset of his arrival on Guam that the very events he heralded would eventually stymie his efforts to establish a flourishing Protestant mission on Guam.  However, as time passed, his subsequent letters and those of his successor, Rev. Case, clearly indicate both men came to realize that as a result of certain geopolitical realities within the Pacific region, the plight of the tiny island of Guam was at the mercy of much larger forces, reducing Guam to a subservient role in the unfolding events.  Ultimately, the unbridled push of commercial entrepreneurs to tap the growing Chinese markets, the relentless efforts by the U.S. military to protect American commercial and strategic interests in the Pacific and to blunt growing Japanese aggression, and the ABCFM’s aim to target larger populations for mission work, helped undermine the Protestant mission in Guam.  As a consequence, the Protestant missionaries’ ambitions to instill within their Chamorro brethren the Protestant revivalist spirit which had swept throughout the U.S. were severely curtailed.

The Long Shadow of China.  Years before Guam became an American possession, China’s teeming masses had  captured the imagination of American entrepreneurs and Protestant missionaries alike.  In fact, beginning with the early decades of the 19th century, American merchants and missionaries established measurable inroads into the vast Chinese mainland.  To them, China’s commercial and evangelical possibilities appeared limitless. Soon the excitement exuded by these merchants and missionaries caught the attention of American politicians, American military strategists, and eventually, the American public. 

            The strong allure of China’s hidden promises cast a long shadow over the entire western Pacific.   Throughout most of the 19th century China exerted an inordinate pull over the collective imaginations of Americans.  As a result, with only a handful of exceptions, other Asian nations, as well as the scores of islands dotting the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean, were frequently considered mere stepping stones to the riches awaiting America in China.   Their importance was measured in terms of how much they could contribute toward the overall goal of unimpeded trade with China and an open door policy for American missionaries.  This naturally cast them into supporting roles.  Much to the consternation of Reverends Price and Case, such became the plight of tiny Guam.  The progress of the Protestant mission on Guam was greatly overshadowed by the illusive promises of China and the importance attached to the Philippines, described as the gateway to China, in making the dreams of merchants and missionaries come true.

            With an eye toward China, the U.S. seizure of Guam and the Philippines in 1898 was the culmination of America’s century-long program of expanding its sphere of influence across the Pacific Ocean and underscored a gradual shift in national sentiments and philosophies toward the matter of American expansionism.  Beginning in the dawning years of the 19th century, young America, led by individualistic leaders who sought to throw off the oppression of outside forces and to forge a new nation, united behind such national themes as Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine to justify her clamor for new possessions.  In 1803 she purchased the Louisiana and Oregon Territories from France; in 1821 she bought Florida from Spain; in 1845 Mexico ceded California to America and sold New Mexico and Arizona to the U.S. in 1850; and in 1867, America acquired Alaska from Russia. 

            With the acquisition of these territories the U.S. boundaries stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. The newly acquired California afforded the U.S. 1500 miles of Pacific coastline.  The gold rush of 1848 lured many Americans westward and the eventual depletion of the fields left many frustrated investors and prospectors with a thirst for exploring new paths to riches.  The vast Pacific region seemed a most logical outlet for this quest for wealth and adventure. American commercial interests became increasingly allured by the economic opportunities awaiting them within the Pacific region. 

            For the United States, a country long absorbed in its European roots, the shift in focus from the Atlantic to the Pacific was a gradual process, spearheaded primarily by the foresightedness of a very few individuals who saw in Asia a chance to expand American commercial interests.  Commercial competition within the European continent was keen.  America, with her relatively weak naval forces, was vulnerable to the superior navies of other foreign countries which were better equipped to guard their seaways and bully would-be competitors.  Therefore, as the 18th century gave way to the 19th century, the relatively untapped Asian markets became more appealing to many American businesses.  The teeming masses of China in particular represented the greatest commercial potential. 

            Blessed with the world’s most formidable navy, England led all other nations in opening China to Western trade.  In fact, for several decades the U.S. depended upon England to initiate new markets and to protect her from enemies.  However, cracking Chinese markets proved to be difficult even for England.  China, an ancient, bureaucratically developed civilization, long isolated from western influence, had a strong sense of cultural superiority and considered all westerners “barbarians” and their commercial wares as inferior to those of their own (Thomson, 1981).  China therefore did not wish to buy Western goods.  This put both England and the U.S. at a great trading disadvantage.  China offered many goods attractive to western tastes but without corresponding interests in Western wares, the U.S. and England were faced with staggering trade deficits.

            The answer to this dilemma proved to be the highly addictive and illegal drug, opium.   Beginning in last half of the 18th century British traders started trading opium with their Chinese counterparts for a variety of Chinese goods.  In 1805 America joined Great Britain in the opium trade.  The arrangement proved profitable to all sides but extremely debilitating to Chinese people.  The Chinese government, which had banned opium, attempted to curtail its illicit trade and in 1839 demanded that England and America surrender their stores of opium to Chinese government officials.  England retaliated by declaring war on China which raged from 1840 to 1842.  England was the undisputed victor of the Opium War and in the ensuing Treaty of Nanking, exacted expanded trade concessions from China which included the continued sale of opium.  Many of these concessions were later extended to the U.S.

            Following closely in the wake of English and American trading vessels bound for China were Protestant missionaries who saw in China a practically limitless field of heathen souls ripe for evangelical harvesting.  In fact, next to commercialism, evangelism was the most persistent characteristic of American East-West trade (Thomson, 1981).   England was first to send Protestant missionaries to China, followed soon thereafter by the United States.  The ABCFM sent the first Congregationalist, Elijah Bridgman, to China in 1830 (Thomson, 1981). 

            For many decades merchants and missionaries worked in concert with each other, often forging  a somewhat awkward symbiotic relationship.   In an extreme example of the complex relationship existing between commercial and religious interests, in 1838, Reverend Dr. Gutzlaff handed out Bibles from one side of a ship while the crew unloaded their illegal cargo of opium on the other side (Thomson, 1981, p. 44). 

            The logistics of American trade with China proved quite challenging to merchants.  Since the two countries were separated by thousands of miles of open ocean, the fickle and sometimes perilous moods of nature frequently sent the valuable cargo to the ocean’s bottom.  In addition, the absence of U.S. naval protection subjected American merchants to pirate attacks as well as official Chinese obstinacy.

            The capture of the Philippines during the Spanish American War  literally put the U.S. at China’s back door and substantially improved the prospects for increased American trade with China.  Protestant missionaries stood to gain from a greater U.S. presence as well.  The missionaries had long before accepted the need (or at least the threat) of military might to protect their missions and to increase mission territories.  In May 1858, S. Wells Williams, a noted missionary scholar, wrote

that nothing short of the Society for the Diffusion of Cannon Balls will give them [the Chinese] the useful knowledge they now require to realize their own helplessness . . . . we shall get nothing important out of the Chinese unless we stand in a menacing attitude before them.  They would grant nothing unless fear stimulated their sense of justice, for they are among the most craven of people, cruel and selfish as heathenism can make men so we must be backed by force if we wish them to listen to reason (Thomson, 1981, p. 47).

            This friction between the Chinese and Protestant missionaries was rooted in vastly differing ideological approaches to interpersonal relationships.  For nearly 2000 years Confucianism was China’s social and political cement.  Behavior was dictated by one’s status in a hierarchical society (Thomson, 1981).  Individual needs and wants gave way to the greater interests of the family or community. 

            In contrast, American Protestantism is an individualistic ideology which preaches the primacy of faith and personal loyalty to scriptures.  Biblical interpretations of correct responses to set conditions could and often did go against the hierarchical dictates of Chinese behavior.  Missionaries were too unabashed in their strident efforts to evangelize the Chinese people and, unlike American merchants who limited most of their activities to port cities, Protestant missionaries roamed throughout China infiltrating the remotest areas.

            Understandably, conflict frequently followed the missionaries’ message of personal salvation.  Additionally, foreign merchants’ growing demands to expand commercial enterprises within China at the expense of Chinese merchants and an accumulation of national humiliations at the hands of foreign governments fanned a growing and potentially dangerous anti-foreign movement led by a group called the Boxers.  The Boxers threatened not only foreign interests but the imperial government as well.   Bolstered by a ground-swell of support from poor Chinese, the Boxers became a formidable power which challenged the perceived abuses of the imperial government.  To placate the Boxers, Chinese officialdom joined forces with the Boxers to challenge further foreign incursions (Varg, 1958).

            Conditions continued to deteriorate.  Fearing for his missionaries’ safety, Judson Smith, the Secretary of the ABCFM, and frequent correspondent to both Revs. Price and Case, sent a report to the Secretary of State, John Hay, and asked, “what additional measures for the effective protection of life and property of American citizens have been taken by our government?” (Varg, 1977, p. 46).

            In August, 1900, Smith’s worst fears were realized when violence erupted.  The Boxers went on a murderous rout.  Their primary targets were the missionaries, their families, and Chinese Christian adherents.  When the hostilities were eventually halted, the fatalities included 136 Protestant missionaries, 53 of their children, and up to 30,000 Chinese Christians (Varg 1977).

            The reverberations from such a large catastrophe impacted on Guam’s Protestant mission.  For months Rev. Price awaited a response from Judson Smith to his urgent requests to purchase land for the mission and to rent a house which would serve as a chapel for the fledgling congregation.  On August 2, 1901, a frustrated Price wrote to Smith:

It would seem that we ought to be informed about that which so closely touches our work. .  . I know that the troubles in China have added much to our burdens this year and that you are far from being well, and I am far from desiring to be exacting; but it is very difficult to do work under suspense which is not at all relieved by the coming of the mail.

            Ironically, for all the promise China held for Protestants, the promise went unfulfilled.   Converting Chinese souls to Protestantism proved no less challenging than opening Chinese commercial markets.  In fact, the Congregationalists did not win their first Chinese converts until eighteen years after they began their first mission (Thomson, 1981).  In 1853 the total number of Chinese converts to all Protestant denominations was 350.  In 1889 the number had risen to 37,000 and to 178,000 by 1905. These new converts were ministered by a growing number of missionaries.  Through 1840 there were only about 20 American Protestant missionaries in China.  This number increased to 200 by 1870 and more than a 1000 by the year 1900 (Thomson, 1981).  Undoubtedly, the desire to increase missionary presence in China contributed to the failure of the ABCFM to send additional missionaries to Guam.

            To a much lesser degree missionary efforts in Guam were further diluted by the Protestant hierarchy’s desire to serve the needs of the Philippines, also referred to as the “gateway to China.”  Ironically, Rev. Price was one of the strongest proponents for expanding missionary work to the Philippines.  His letters back to the Boston headquarters are generously peppered with references to the Philippines and especially with pleas to open missions on the island of Mindanao.  On August 28, 1901, moved by a visit to Guam by a group of lay Christian teachers bound for Mindanao to teach in the newly established government schools, he wrote:

Some of teachers are going to Mindanao and it is a reproach to the Christian church that the secular teacher outruns the missionary in the redemption of that great island. Are we to close our eyes to this great opportunity which involves such grave responsibilities?  With the work so started it will be an easy matter for us to go in there and make it our Western station. There ought to be someone at home to plead for Mindanao.  My heart yearns over the land of darkness!  What shall we do if our ship does not take us thither ward next year!  God’s ears are not dull of hearing nor is his arm shortened.

            Shortly after  Price wrote this letter, the Congregationalists opened their first mission to Mindanao.  Reverend Robert F. Black went to Davao to establish the first mission.  In response, Rev. Price wrote: “I have prayed for Mindanao almost constantly for more than a year, and never in this period has our family altar been without a petition for that island and now, --- well, you can understand why we rejoice especially . . . Hallelujah!  There is no more needy field in the world. . .”  (F.M. Price, personal communication, November 20, 1901).  So convinced was he of the necessity of strengthening the Philippine mission that he discouraged the ABCFM from opening new missions in Yap or Palau or any other Micronesian mission (Price, December 16, 1901 and January 1, 1902).  He went so far as to suggest that the Congregationalist missions in Chuuk and Pohnpei be turned over to their German counterparts, since Germany now had possession of the islands, and that the American missionaries be transferred to Mindanao (F.M. Price, personal communication, December 16, 1901).

            Although the Philippines may have captured the imagination of the Congregationalist leaders, as with the mission on Guam, they were miserly in disbursing personnel to the Philippines.  In fact, six years passed from the time of initiating the Mindanao mission before additional missionaries, Dr. and Mrs. Sibley, were sent to Davao to set up a hospital. Another seven years would pass before an additional crop of missionaries arrived (Clymer, 1986).

            Thus, although the Philippines may have diverted some of the ABCFM’s attention away from Guam, the real impediment to growth of the Guam mission appears to have been the attention paid to the volatile Chinese missions.  In the end, the sheer numbers of the potential Chinese converts seemingly overshadowed other missions, including Guam.  Obviously displeased with the situation, a bitter Rev. Case wrote the ABCFM on February 5, 1907: 

Numbers to be reached and opportunities seem to be the standard of judgments with the Board.  Our 10,000 seem small enough beside China’s millions.  .  . No promise has been given us of any intention to fill his [Rev. Price’s] place, but on the contrary many things have been written me to make me believe that the Board intends to cut off further reinforcements from our mission in order to be better able to meet the increasing demands of the larger fields.

            The extent of the impact that China’s missions had on the Guam mission  remains debatable.  However, there is no doubt that the lure of China diverted precious resources from Guam and substantially contributed to the Board’s ultimate decision to close the Guam mission.           

Japan’s Emergence as a Major Power in the Western Pacific.  China was not the only Asian country causing havoc with Guam’s Protestant mission.  Starting in the last decade of the 19th century, and accelerating during the first two decades of the 20th century, an emerging Japan began to exert its influence over the Western Pacific, including Guam.  In time, Japanese began to view the U.S.’ growing presence in the area as a trespass in their back yard and a threat to their economic and militaristic goals.  As a result, what started out as an amicable relationship between the United States and Japan slowly deteriorated into a hostile relationship and set the nations on a collision course which eventually resulted to the horrific battles of World War II. 

            American interest in Japan can be traced back to the California gold rush days in the mid-19th century.  The gold boom dramatically increased the number of U.S. citizens in California and when the gold fever dissipated these new residents realized the commercial importance of their new home.  California’s expansive coastline presented new opportunities for trade with other Pacific rim countries.             

            The invention of the steamship made the possibility of increased trade with Asia a reality.  However, steamships required frequent recoaling stations.  In time, there would also be a need to increase the presence of U.S. naval forces to protect the projected commercial routes to China.  Hawaii could meet these dual needs. However, other ports of call between San Francisco and Shanghai would have to be located.

            Japan seemed a logical place for the establishment of other friendly ports.  However, little was known in the West of Japan or its people.  Following the incursion of Catholic missionaries in the mid-16th century, the Japanese government, fearing that western influence would fragment the island nation’s rather tenuous political unity, expelled all foreigners except a few Dutch and Chinese merchants who were confined to small Deshima island in Nagasaki harbor.  Japanese were forbidden to leave Japan.  To ensure compliance with this dictate, citizens were prohibited from constructing ocean going ships (Thomson, 1981). For two and a half centuries Japan was virtually sealed off from the rest of the world.

            Japan’s isolationism irked Americans who viewed such behavior as an impediment to U.S. commercial interests.  The U.S. was involved in the lucrative Pacific whaling trade.  Those sailors who were unfortunate enough to shipwreck on the shores of Japan were treated badly.  Also, no ports of refuge existed for foreign merchants.  Japan refused to share any of its purportedly rich coal reserves, an essential resource for the burgeoning steamship trade between the U.S. and China.  In addition, Japan, which had a larger population than the U.S., was viewed as a potential trading partner.  But U.S. merchants had been unsuccessful in establishing inroads into Japanese markets.  All these factors made the American government extremely eager to open Japan to greater U.S. influence.

            The usual pattern for U.S. expansionism was that merchants established the first contacts with foreign nations in an attempt to increase U.S. commercial enterprises.  Once the door was opened the U.S. government soon followed and established diplomatic relations with the country to ensure the continued free flow of goods.  With U.S. merchants unable to crack the Japanese market, the U.S. government was forced to take the lead in establishing some type of dialogue with Japan.  The U.S. decided on a rather aggressive approach and in 1853 sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to be the harbinger of Western trade.  A better choice could not have been made. 

            Perry, along with only a handful of other individuals, realized the full potential of Pacific rim nations to American interests.  His greatest fear was that inaction by the U.S. government would give other nations, such as Great Britain, an opportunity to gain the upper hand in nurturing relations with friendly Pacific nations.  Ultimately this could work to the grave disadvantage of the U.S.  Perry once wrote:

When we look at the possessions in the east of our great maritime rival, England and of the constant and rapid increase of their fortified ports, we should be admonished of the necessity of prompt measures on our part . . . Fortunately the Japanese and many other islands in the Pacific are still left untouched by this unconscionable government; and, as some of them lay in a route of commerce which is destined to become of great importance to the United States, no time should be lost in adopting active measures to secure a sufficient number of ports of refuge. (Dulles, 1932, p. 67)

            Perry landed in Tokyo harbor in 1853.  Pressure was brought to bear on the Japanese government to enter into an agreement with the U.S.  Perry made veiled threats that Japan’s refusal to execute such an agreement could result in aggressive U.S. naval activity.   The end result was a treaty with Japan whereby American castaways would be cared for, ports of refuge would be established in the villages of Shimoda in the Izu peninsula and Hakodate on Hokkaido, and a consul would be maintained at Shimoda.  In 1858 Townsend Harris, the first American consul to Japan, exacted a trade treaty with Japan. 

            In 1868, a remarkable series of events dramatically altered the course of events in Japan.  The shogunate form of government, which had well served an isolationist Japan, was unable to adapt to a world of growing technology and growing foreign encroachment into Pacific waters.  As a result of an uprising the shoguns were overthrown and the Emperor was restored. 

            The youthful Meiji Emperor immediately embarked on a mission to modernize Japan on its own terms.  With open arms Japanese embraced western technology from many different countries.  From the Americans they copied the concept of a public school system; they turned to the Italians for advice in fine arts and architecture; from Germany they learned of modern medicine and how to brew beer;  the French helped them to draft codes of law and to build an army; and from the British they learned to build and train a navy. 

            Japan proved an able student.  When tensions between China and Japan over ownership of Korea reached a boiling point in 1895 the Western tutoring nations watched proudly as Japan triumphed both on land and sea.  The U.S. congratulated itself in Japan’s victory, convinced that Japan had successfully assimilated Yankee skills and energy (Thomson, 1981).

            However, in time this pride turned to wariness because Japan, unlike other Asian nations, was able to amass this knowledge without allowing any one of the mentoring countries, including the U.S., to gain a strong commercial foothold.  America’s inability to penetrate both Japanese economic and political barriers eventually created a level of animosity toward the Japanese government.  This animosity began to turn to fear when Japan stunned the world in 1905 by defeating the Russian army and navy on Korean and Chinese soil and seaways.  The U.S. had been amused when Japan had beaten another Asian country.  However, with the defeat of Russia, Japan was victorious over a predominately white country whose army had been considered the best in Asia. 

            Mark Peattie in his book, Nanyo, summed up the situation as follows:

This American complacency about Japan’s naval capacity was destroyed when the Japanese Combined Fleet crushed the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905.  In the ensuing clear-headed reassessment of Japanese strength, Japan’s military and naval potential became as important as its intentions.  To those in command of the United States Navy, Japanese energy, ambition, and valor now reinforced a potential threat to America’s new Philippine territories, which lay less than a day from Taiwan by steam.

*     *     *

. . . as the naval establishments in each nations brought into sharper focus their strategic priorities for the immediate future, the adversary navy clearly emerged as the salient hypothetical enemy in a naval war.  Each began to ponder the strategic problems of a Japan-United States conflict.  In the staff colleges on both sides of the ocean the study of a Pacific war centered on two common assumptions; that the Japanese would conduct offensive operations against the Philippines at the outset of the war, and that the United States Battle Fleet would move westward across the Pacific to come to the aid of the American garrison and naval units there (Peattie, 1988, p. 37).

In 1907 the U.S. Navy devised a written strategy, termed “War Plan Orange” in which the U.S. would assume an essentially defensive role in the initial phase of any war with an Asian country.  This plan went through a number of modifications over the years but was still in use at the outbreak of World War II.

            Guam would have a role in any future act of aggression in the western Pacific.  It would serve as a vital recoaling station and could serve as an all important navy base.  Of course, the Navy’s military stratagem was conducted in complete secrecy.  Civilians on Guam, including the Protestant missionaries, were undoubtedly unaware of the potential dangers posed by the growing level of animosity between the U.S. and Japan.                                                    

            However, this is not to say that they were unaware of the growing commercial influence Japan was exerting over Micronesia and Guam.  Beginning in the 1880s, Japanese merchants began establishing trading stations throughout Micronesia.  Rev. Price, who had lived for many years in Chuuk, was quite familiar with Japan’s presence in the Carolines.  On January 30, 1901 he wrote to the ABCFM that he learned Germany, which had purchased the Carolines from Spain, had “arrested and carried to Pohnpei [the Japanese merchants] for fraudulently selling fire arms and ammunition and that it is probable that all Japanese traders will be entirely shut out of  Ruk [Chuuk]”.

            Although Guam came under the American flag in 1898, the lack of shipping and the great distances between the U.S. and Guam held the flow of American products needed by the civilian community to a trickle.  Many immigrating Japanese merchants willingly took advantage of the opportunities to address these shortages and set up a variety of businesses on Guam.  There was a dramatic influx of Japanese into Guam around the turn of the century as indicated by a 1908 island census.  Of 145 foreigners on Guam, 101 were Japanese.  Most of the adults were merchants.  Other Japanese remained based in their homeland and established shipping companies to export needed supplies and goods to the island. 

            Apparently, these merchants were not adverse to increasing their profits on island when conditions allowed.  As a result of the Boxer Rebellion in China the normal flow of commerce to Guam was disturbed.  Rev. Price noted that “[t]he war in the East has already affected the price of food in Guam.  The Japanese merchants as soon as they heard of it raised the price of rice. . . The great majority of the people here depend on Japanese rice for a staple article of diet” (F.M. Price, personal communication, February 16, 1903).  In fact, concern over Japan’s commercial influence on Guam occasionally caused tensions  to rise within the community.

            The mounting apprehension over Japanese motives in the Pacific ensured that Guam would remain under the tight grip of the U.S. Navy.  The Navy’s all encompassing control over the island would prove to have an adverse impact on the Protestant mission’s ability to effectively evangelize on Guam.  In fact, in many ways the Navy’s governance of Guam would prove to be as formidable an obstacle as did the Catholic Church.                                                         

            Thus, by the time Jose Custino returned to his birthplace in March of 1899,  the weight of geopolitical events were already exerting tremendous influence over the island’s course of events.  Although the island itself offered little in the way of natural resources, its geographical importance as a port of replenishment and naval port made it a crucial stepping stone to the vast Chinese marketplace and a potential buffer to military aggression by Japan.  American capitalistic and militaristic goals could only be realized and protected through a carefully choreographed relationship among entrepreneurs, politicians, and the U.S. military.   Guam’s role as a means to an end, rather than an end in and of itself, cast it in a subservient position to America’s growing economic, political and militaristic interests.  As the Protestant missionaries learned, their attempts to influence the course of events on Guam would frequently be diffused and deflected by these competing interests.
 

Chapter 5 - The military administration on Guam

            The political situation on Guam upon the arrival of the Custino brothers and their Congregationalists’ successors differed significantly from the political situations faced by the first missionaries to Hawaii and Micronesia and frequently proved to be a vexing annoyance to the missionaries and a perceived obstacle to their religious endeavors.  The Hawaiian mission of 1820 and the Micronesian mission of 1852 both operated under the approval and control of self-governing village or island chiefs who wielded tremendous influence over their subjects and fellow clansmen.  The conversion of a island leader or chief often meant that his/her constituents would soon follow.  For the most part the missionaries to Hawaii and Micronesia were able to win the favor of numerous influential  local leaders and as a consequence these Protestant missions flourished.

            In contrast, by March 1899, when Jose Custino returned to Guam, Spain had already surrendered the island to the U.S. and the governance of the island was in a state of flux.  For the first time in her history, America was faced with governing a group of people outside the North American continent.  This unprecedented situation presented unique logistical problems and left numerous political and legal questions open to interpretation, such as: Did the “inalienable rights” of the U.S. Constitution extend to the inhabitants of the new possessions?  Who was to govern the Guam?  What laws would apply?  Who could write new laws?

            The U.S. Supreme Court became the ultimate arbiter in resolving these issues when in 1901 a series of four cases, collectively referred to as the Insular Cases, were appealed to the highest court.  In a five-to-four decision the Supreme Court ruled that under Article IV, Section 3, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, the U.S. Congress had unlimited authority over all U.S. territories.  Further, the Court held that the U.S. Constitution did not apply to insular territories as it did to the states.  In an ironic twist of racism the Court stated: “If these possessions are inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation and modes of thoughts, the administration of government and justice, according to Anglo-Saxon principles, may for a time be impossible” (Rogers, 1995, p. 125).

            Thus, the Court failed to acknowledge that the Catholic faith practiced by most inhabitants of the new Spanish territories was the same religion shared by many Americans.  The justices also failed to acknowledge that the existing laws and methods of taxation in these possessions were based on European statutory and common laws which did not represent a drastic departure from American jurisprudence.

            As a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling the civil status and political rights of the Chamorros were specifically reserved to be determined by the U.S. Congress, which failed to take any action.  Faced with this dilemma the U.S. Attorney General concluded:

The political status of these islands is anomalous. Neither the Constitution nor the laws of the United States have been extended to them, and the only administrative authority existing in them is that derived mediately or immediately from the President as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States (Cox, 1916, p. 78).

            On December 23, 1898, President McKinley placed the island of Guam under the control of the Department of the Navy with directions that the Secretary “will take such steps as may be necessary to establish the authority of the United States and to give it necessary protection and government”  (Cox, 1916, p.78).  The fact that Guam was placed under Naval governance spoke volumes about the island’s importance to military interests.  “Its excellent harbor and strategic position, lying as it does very nearly on the great circle between Honolulu and the Straits of San Bernardino, made it at once desirable as a base for the United States Navy” (Cox, 1916, p. 42).

            The Secretary of Navy was authorized to appoint a naval officer to serve as governor of Guam.  The Naval governor was the only duly appointed and commissioned officer.  The governor’s powers were intended to be plenary. He had the authority to do what the exigencies of military government required, and he held the supreme legislative, executive, and judicial authority of the island. All other officers in judicial and executive positions were his subordinates and were appointed and removed at his pleasure.

            In fact, the Naval governor wore two hats, one military, one civilian.  Under the appointment by the Secretary of the Navy the governor was designated as the “Commandant, United States Naval Station, Guam” while under presidential commission he served as the civilian “Governor of Guam.”  Obviously, this gave the naval governors of Guam tremendous power over military and civilian personnel alike.  The governor was bestowed with wide administrative latitude to carry out his duties. 

            Vested with such broad powers each governor was able to leave his personal mark on the island and, at times, to subject the island’s residents to his personal administrative quirks and biases which sometimes spilled over to religious matters, including the operations of the Protestant mission. This would at times lead to complimentary accolades as well as complaints of dictatorial actions, cultural insensitivity, and subjective decision-making.    Both Reverends Price and Case occasionally leveled such accusations against various governors during their respective tenures. 

            On the recommendation of Navy Secretary Long, President McKinley commissioned Captain Richard Phillips Leary, a strong Protestant adherent, as Guam’s first Naval governor on January 12, 1899.  Captain Leary’s written instructions left no doubt that the military’s needs and desires took absolute precedence over all other matters on Guam.

Within the absolute domain of naval authority, which necessarily is and must remain supreme in the ceded territory until the legislation of the U.S. shall otherwise provide, the municipal [i.e., Spanish] laws of the territory . . . are to be considered as continuing in force . . . the mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation, substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule.  In fulfillment of this high mission . . there must be sedulously maintained the strong arm of authority, to repress disturbance and to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings of good government upon the people of the Island of Guam under the green flag of the United States. (Rogers, 1995, p. 114).

            There does not appear to have been any specific directions given to Gov. Leary or his successors concerning their official relations with church matters aside from maintaining a sense of separation of church and state.  Each governor was empowered to steer a delicate course through the turbulent waters of religious concerns and convictions.  Few governors revealed overt religious prejudices, although there were times when personal religious preferences were apparent.  Some governors issued orders which, at least on the surface, appeared to favor one religion over the other.  More often though, a governor’s personal religious leanings manifested themselves in more subtle fashion, such as agreeing to provide transport for the missionaries or selling them certain commodities at discount prices.  However, many of these accommodations were afforded to officials of both the Catholic and Protestant churches so that critics are usually hard-pressed to pinpoint unequivocal examples of prejudice.  Also, it appears that more egregious examples of official religious favoritism dissipated over time as governors learned from the mistakes of their predecessors.

            Leary, being the first American governor on Guam, perhaps set the best example of what not to do when addressing religious matters.  Within days of assuming his new duties as Governor of Guam on August 7, 1899, Leary’s religious biases began to surface.   As a practicing Protestant he held a strong animus against the consumption of alcoholic beverages.  As Governor, he feared that unregulated sale of intoxicants could undermine his authority with the troops and lead to abuses against civilians.  Through General Order No. 1, issued on August 10, 1899, he prohibited the sale of intoxicants to “any person not a resident of this island prior to August 7, 1899”.   Under General Order No. 2 alcohol could be imported into the island only with special authority.

            Gov. Leary’s subsequent orders revealed his anti-Catholic bias.  He prohibited Catholic religious celebrations and processions in villages on patron-saint feast days and the tolling of church bells.  Citing moral indiscretions and branding them “ringleaders in encouraging vicious and demoralizing habits and customs,” Leary also ordered the Spanish Recollects expelled from Guam (Rogers, 1995, p. 120).  Under another general order he established public schools and forbade religious instruction in these schools. 

            On the one hand, these prohibitions can be viewed as Leary’s attempt to enforce the American precept of separation of church and state and to level the religious playing field which had been monopolized for over two centuries by the Catholic Church.  On the other hand, the prohibition against Catholic rituals honoring patron saints and the expelling of the Catholic priests can be seen as the biased dictates of a Protestant leader against the Catholic mainstream.  In fact, Gov. Leary’s actions soon subjected him to national criticism.  Unknown to him, the Navy Department released his reports to the American press.  Catholic officials learning of Leary’s prohibitions against Catholic processions and the expelling of the Spanish priests, denounced his actions and accused him of depriving Chamorros of their legitimate religious liberty and requested his removal.  Naval hierarchy reacted by sending army major general Joseph Wheeler to inspect conditions on Guam and to prepare a report for their review.  General Wheeler, along with a reporter for Harper’s Weekly arrived on February 6, 1900, for a four-day visit.

            In his report, in an apparent understatement, Wheeler reported that “the orders with regard to religion are evidently considered as a hardship and are distasteful to a majority of the people” (Rogers, 1995, p. 121).  Nonetheless, no overt action was taken by the Navy and Leary remained as governor.  Complaints by American Catholics subsided.  Leary’s tenure as Governor ended on July 19, 1900, four months after the return of Jose Custino and four months prior to the arrival of Reverend and Mrs. Price, and Ms. Channel.

            The Leary administration demonstrated just how much impact the governor could have on religious affairs.  From a Protestant perspective, Leary’s actions pertaining to religious matters were positive.  He curtailed the power of the Catholic priests, stopped public Catholic religious celebrations, and banned the sale of intoxicants - all matters of considerable concern to Protestants.  However, as the Guam missionaries would soon learn, not all of Guam’s governors would be as supportive of or sympathetic toward the Protestants’ religious agenda. As can be seen from the Congregationalists’ letters, some governors appeared more openly supportive of the Catholics while others seemingly tried to steer a more objective path between the two religions.       

            Commander Seaton Schroeder replaced Gov. Leary on July 19, 1901, and was four months into his administration when the first Congregationalists missionaries arrived on November 27, 1900.  Perhaps in response to the earlier criticism toward Gov. Leary, within a month of his installation as governor Schroeder lifted the ban against Catholic celebrations of village patron saint fiestas (Rogers, 1995).   On August 11, 1901, he permitted three Spanish Capuchin missionaries to take up residence in Guam to assist the elderly Padre Palomo who alone had been ministering to the needs of the Catholic mainstream since Gov. Leary’s expulsion of the Spanish Recollects (Sullivan, 1957). 

            Despite such an apparent pro-Catholic reprieve, both Gov. Schroeder’s and his wife’s religious allegiances were much less apparent than had been those of Gov. Leary whose support for Protestantism and animosity toward Catholicism was quite pronounced.  Rev. Price in his first letters to the ABCFM applauded Schroeder for attending the mission’s church but he also criticized him for being too lenient and for his failure to become a true Christian by accepting Christ as his Savior (F.M. Price, personal communication, December 17, 1900; January 7, 1901; August 2, 1901).    In December 1901 Mrs. Schroeder donated a Christmas tree to the Protestant mission with an admonishment that her benevolence was not to be revealed (F.M. Price, personal communication, December 16, 1901).  And, even though the Schroeders attended Protestant services, Mrs. Schroeder also attended the Catholic church every morning “for state purposes” (F.M. Price, personal communication, January 31, 1902).

            The Protestant missionaries were ever mindful that their relationship with the naval administration could change rather dramatically with the installation of a new governor. The apprehension experienced by the missionaries during times of an imminent change in governors and the perceived impact this transition would have on the mission is apparent in Rev. Price’s June 9, 1902, letter to the ABCFM.  He wrote:

There is real danger that we shall be entirely without a home in Agana, for we hold our place at the will of a capricious old woman who is a strong catholic. . . Our next governor, if reports are true, will be a catholic; it is important that we obtain the property under this present administration.  No property can be purchased without the consent of the governor . . .

            Indeed, judging from Rev. Price’s letters, he had some cause to fear the next administration of Commander William E. Sewell which began on February 6, 1903.  Initially, all was seemingly well between Sewell and the Protestant mission.  On August 27, 1903, Price wrote to the ABCFM that “[t]he Governor has quite recently taken an interest and has visited me to talk on subjects bearing on his religious thinking.” However, six weeks later Price’s disposition toward his relationship with the Governor changed dramatically.

            In September a confrontation occurred between a group of Protestants, who were publicly evangelizing, and some dissonant Catholic observers.  Apparently an altercation ensued.  Price blamed the Catholic priests for instigating the confrontation.  Much to Rev. Price’s consternation the Governor reacted by issuing a general order under which the Protestants were forbidden to evangelize in a village unless they have a church located in that village. Greatly disconcerted, Price wrote that “everything the Catholics asked for is granted, and the Protestants denied everything that they ought to have in order to evangelize these villages” (F.M. Price, personal communication, October 2, 1903).

            Price continued in the same letter that following the issuance of the order “the jubilant priests went to their people and they thinking that they had the protection of the Governor in their violence, boldly stoned our church in Agana, and attacked our people in the streets, on the way home from services.” Price contended that as a result of these perceived injustices much of the American community rallied behind the Protestant mission because “[t]he average American, whatever his creed, likes to see fair play.”  Immediately “[f]ollowing right on this was the proposal of give the Protestants a Christmas tree in our chapel and nearly $200 was subscribed in a very few hours, one catholic marine giving $5, and the Governor $10.”  Shortly thereafter, Gov. Sewell became very ill and was sent to the States for medical treatment.  He died shortly thereafter.

            Price offered the following summation of Gov. Sewell’s administration: 

At the beginning of this year the Governor of the island issued an order which will increase the cost of living to each missionary family from $50 to $90 per year.  Heretofore we have had ice issued to us regularly.  But our late Governor ordered it sold at a cost to us of about one and a quarter cents a pound. . . We hope our next governor will not be so pro catholic.  It seemed to many of us that the priests dominated him at a very large measure” (Price, personal communicaiton, March 22, 1904).

            At the time of Rev. and Mrs. Price’s departure from Guam in 1904, Commander George L. Dyer was serving as naval governor.  From the available correspondence the two men appeared to have had an amiable relationship.  In fact, Gov. Dyer, exercising his considerable administrative latitude, secured passage for the Prices back to the States aboard a navy ship, a privilege not always extended to civilians.  The Governor also assured Rev. Price that he would keep an eye on the Protestant mission until Rev. Case’s arrival.  And, in fact, on September 20, 1904, Gov. Dyer wrote to the convalescing Price, informing him that “I have visited [the mission school], and I consider the work going on there as most excellent, and I shall do all in my power to support and aid it” (G.L. Dyer, personal communication, September 20, 1904).  In addition, Dyer assured Rev. Price that “[w]hen Mr. Case arrives he will be welcomed and we will all of us do what we can to make him comfortable . . .”  (G.L. Dyer, personnal communication, September 20, 1904).   

            In his letters sent back to the ABCFM Rev. Case discussed the impact of the naval administration with much less frequency than did Rev. Price, although from time to time he did provide some insight into the relations between the naval officialdom and the Protestant mission.  In matters of education he once wrote to lament that as a result of the requirement “to give two hours and a half each day of instruction in English in this school to children between the ages of seven and eight years” he was left with “only about half an hour a day for religious instruction” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, July 17, 1905).  Later he wrote that “[t]he Government has assumed a close supervision of our school and has compelled me to operate my terms to agree with those of the public schools.  This is to enable them to enforce attendance at school” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, January 9, 1906).

            Case also wrote of an encounter with Gov. Edward J. Dorn who appears to have been predisposed to support the Catholic Church rather than the Protestant mission.  Case told the ABCFM that Governor, along with Mrs. Dorn, had recently attended Protestant services and “expressed his interest in having all the American attend, and, with his help, perhaps something may be accomplished. He has assured us, however, that his sympathies are all with the Catholics” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, January 22, 1908).

            In fact, Gov. Dorn’s subsequent involvement in a very sensitive matter involving the Catholic Church became a matter of much controversy.  On June 18, 1907, the Catholic Church on Guam, which had been administered from the diocese of Cebu, Philippines, was placed under the jurisdiction of the Prefecture Apostolic of the Marianas, home-based in Saipan.  The Marianas, along with much of Micronesia, was under German control, having been sold to Germany by Spain in 1899.  German Capuchins were sent to the Marianas to replace the Spanish missionaries and officially took over the administrative reins in February, 1908.  The German Prefect, Rev. Father Paul of Kirchhausen, visited Guam in April 1908 and again in 1909 and was treated to a very cool reception by the Guam Catholics (Sullivan, 1957).  Apparently, despite sharing the same religion, the cultural chasm was difficult to bridge and tension mounted.

            These tensions spread to the respective governors of Guam and Saipan, Governor Dorn and Governor Georg Fritz.  Gov. Fritz issued an edict prohibiting Guam Chamorros from owning property on Saipan unless they lived there and actively administered the property.  Guam’s venerable Monsignor Palomo, who had just celebrated his golden jubilee in the priesthood, was among those local Chamorros who faced disenfranchisement from their Saipan properties.  Gov. Dorn retaliated by prohibiting German citizens from entering Guam (Sullivan, 1957).

            Rev. Paul returned for a third visit to Guam on June 10, 1910, along with Father Callistus, who was to be appointed pastor of Agat.  Gov. Dorn refused to permit the German Capuchins to conduct their business.  Instead they were confined to Cabras Island from June 9 through the 20th at which time they were forced to return to Saipan.  To resolve the matter, on March 1, 1911, the Pope established a separate Vicariate Apostolic of Guam and entrusted its care to the Spanish Capuchin Province of Catalonia, Spain.

            Dorn’s involvement in Church matters was memorialized by an anonymous member of the Civilian Club of Guam in the following sardonic poem which underscored both his dictatorial management style in particular as well as the great concentration of power vested in Guam’s governors in general:

Salam! Salam!

I’m the Governor of Guam,

I’m glorious and great,

I’m a pampered potentate,

So I am,

I run things as I please,

Get down on your knees,

I’m the ruler of the tightest

little island in the seas,

That’s me!

Those who do not like my way,

I shut up or send away,

I’m a wonder and I know it, --

Of the thirty-third degree (Rogers, 1995, p. 132).

            The ambivalence toward the Protestant mission displayed by the various governors was mirrored within the military community at-large.  Both Reverends Case and Price frequently commented about the behavior of the military community toward the mission.  During the first two years of his tenure on Guam, Price noted the rather rude behavior of the U.S. troops and American civilian workers.  Perhaps this resulted from the fact that America was a new colonial power without experience in administering foreign civilians.  A couple years after his arrival on Guam, Rev. Price noted that “[t]there is a better class of officers and civilians here now than there was at first and there is some little congenial clean social life outside of the mission circle” (F.M. Price, personal communication, July 21, 1903).

            Rev. Case frequently complained about the lack of support and involvement by military personnel.  “By preaching to the best of my ability, by calling and by personal invitation, I have tried to interest the Americans here in religious service, but the response has been very feeble.  Generally speaking, the navy people are not interested in this sort of thing.”  However, he was hesitant to give up the English services fearing that by doing so he would be surrendering ground to the Catholic Church.  “At present, about as many Americans are going to the Catholic Church as to our Mission Chapel.   This is an argument [in] favor of maintaining these services, as the Catholic Church has the prestige of numbers, and should not have the monopoly of those forces which may strengthen her power and put out little work more deeply under her shadow”  (H.E.B. Case, July 17, 1905). However, two years later, frustrated by ABCFM’s failure to send any  additional missionaries to assist him, Case informed the Board that “[t]he English preaching services have been given up for the present because the attendance dwindled to nothing and I was too tired to keep them going” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, August 21, 1907).

            A few months later, in a summary to the ABCFM of the events of 1907, Case wrote of his experience with the American community as follows:

The Committee on the Report of the Foreign Department “notes with apprehension the continued indifference of the proportionately large number of the Americans in our new possession of Guam.”  We feel the same apprehension, but we don’t know what we can do about it.  Consider some of the obstacles to the maintenance of English services for the Americans.  The very large majority of the Americans are not of the church-going class, they would not go to church in America and they certainly will not in Guam, where the enervating climate saps the resolution.  Then about one third of them are Catholic in their sympathies, and will not come to Protestant services.  And there are other attractions to take the attention, such as the clubs for drinking, a moving picture show, and late dinners, all of which find in Sunday the day of largest indulgence.  The existence of a sort of line of division in the social life of the navy people, the officers not entering into social relations with the marines or the civil employees, renders it difficult to unite in one service all classes of Americans and Chamorros.  We regret that we are not in touch with the officers and their families; but they have chosen not to return our calls, and have shown no desire to receive the ministries of the missionaries.  The attendance at the meetings has been entirely on the part of the marines and the civil people.  We have thus gradually given up any attempt to interest the officers, confining our efforts to the people who responded to us (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, January 22, 1908).

            This disinterest of the part of the naval administration and the American residents on Guam perhaps came somewhat as a surprise to the Protestant missionaries.  After all, most Protestant adherents, including Congregationalists, had strongly supported the Spanish American War.   Many felt that territorial acquisition was divinely inspired if not actually guided by God.  Congregationalists fervently believed that American notions of democracy and the American cultural underpinnings of individualism, self-reliance, and industriousness were inextricably intertwined with Christian ideals and goals.  Thus, the military on Guam, indeed all military forces within the newly acquired Spanish territories, were seen as the vanguards of the Christian message leading to eternal salvation.  Devout Protestants believed that the military was obligated both by principles of democracy and the Christian tenets to pave the way for the Protestant missionaries.

            Shortly before his departure, Rev. Price wrote of a conversation with Governor Dyer in which he echoed these sentiments. “I told him we did not want special favors for the Protestants, for that would do them more harm than good; but we did claim the right to exist under the American Flag with the privileges of the most favored citizens of Guam, and protection in the exercise of ordinary duties as citizens and Christians” (F.M. Price, personal communication, July 16, 1904). 

            Clearly, neither Rev. Price nor Rev. Case believed that the military had lived up to its moral and Christian obligation to support the Protestant mission.  In fact, the military, through its various governors, had placed obstacles in the missionaries’ way and thwarted their efforts to convert Chamorros to Protestantism.  These obstacles included a fickle naval administration whose support of the mission ebbed and flowed according to the personal religious biases of the various governors; official interference in school curriculum; denial of the right to publicly evangelize; and the lack of active participation and support from military personnel.  Convinced that much larger numbers of heathen souls within the Pacific region awaited Protestant conversion, the Congregationalists unceremoniously closed their Guam mission in 1910 and took God’s work elsewhere.
 

Chapter 6 - The impact of individual missionaries on the Guam mission

            There is yet another factor, albeit subjective, which also undoubtedly had its effect on the Guam mission. To some greater or lesser degree the unique personalities of those missionaries responsible for instilling the Protestant message in the Chamorro people impacted on the overall effectiveness of the mission.   Obviously, some missionaries are better suited for mission work than others.  There are those who are blessed with the power of persuasion and a keen ability to work well with people of differing races and cultures.  And there are those who are less suited for such challenges and therefore less effective in winning souls to Protestantism. 

            Because Guam’s mission was so small, the missionaries’ personalities set the tone for the entire missionary enterprise. In larger missions with larger staffs the extreme strengths or weaknesses of any one missionary can be moderated by the sheer number and range of the personalities.   However, on Guam such was not the case.  With only one missionary usually stationed at the mission at any given time, the personality of that missionary was undoubtedly magnified in the eyes of Chamorros and Statesiders alike.  Consequently, the operation of the small mission likely reflected the unique personal makeup of the individual missionary and the mission’s strengths and weaknesses rose and fell with those of the missionary.

            During the short tenure of the Congregationalist’s mission on Guam two individuals were primarily responsible for overseeing the mission’s work and charting the mission’s course:  Reverend Francis M. Price, and Reverend Herbert E. B. Case.   From their letters we can glean insight into the religious, social, and ideological leanings and draw some conclusions about their effectiveness as missionaries on Guam.  Although as practicing Congregationalist both shared similar religious backgrounds they differed significantly in age, experience, and attitude toward the rigors of missionary work.

            The religious foundation for both men was rooted in the Congregationalists’ interpretation of neo-Puritanism which had evolved in the first few decades of the 19th century as a result of revived American spiritualism.  Congregationalism sprang from Calvinistic beliefs which emphasized the doctrines of the trinity, predestination, and salvation solely by God’s grace and de-emphasized elaborate ceremonies and forms of worship.  They followed a rigid and stern moral code which prohibited cursing, drinking, smoking, and dancing.  Congregationalism was also generously infused with attributes widely assimilated into New England culture - individualism, hard-work, and self-sufficiency.  The strict moral code did not preclude the accumulation of money.  After all, God’s work depended upon the monetary generosity of church members.  However, monetary frugality, which included generous church donations, rather than frivolity was expected.

            These puritanical traits were further imbedded in Revs. Price’s and Case’s psyches through their rigorous religious training. Both attended renowned Congregational  and Presbyterian institutions of higher learning.  Price attended Harvard and Case graduated from Brown University and the Hartford Theological School.  Consistent with Congregationalist and Presbyterian religious beliefs, neither pursued missionary work as a means to gain salvation through good works.  As Calvinists they believed that the grace received at the moment of conversion was sufficient for their spiritual needs.  However, this surge of grace put the adherent in a debtor’s position.  “The debt, though a free gift without interest, had to be honored by unquestioning obedience to the Great Commission . . . ‘preach the Gospel to every creature . . .’” (Garrett, 1982, p. 34).  As with most graduates of these schools, “[b]y the time their professors were through with them, they were often chiseled, fitted and polished - pious and practical Yankees” (Garret, 1982, p. 34). 

            Congregationalist missionaries believed that both their calling to be missionaries and their success or failure was providential.  They took on the yoke of missionary work not on their own initiative but in response to God’s calling.  Likewise, they  believed that the circumstances of their mission work were not the result of process or coincidence but the Hand of God and the leading of God.  In a journal entry for 1897, Rev. Price, who was then a missionary to Chuuk, wrote of the mission there:

The ground is broken, and mellowed and the seed is planted, but the great spiritual harvest is not yet.  We need such a wave as swept over the Sandwich Islands and Samoa in 1839 and 1840.  The Pentecost must come for the Ruk [Chuuk] Mission.  We must wait upon God until He shall pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods on the dry ground, and upon his servants and handmaidens “pour out His Spirit”  (F.M. Price, personal communiciation, 1897, p.34).

            By the time Congregationalist missionaries were dispatched to Micronesia in 1852, a more liberal view of mankind was permeating the official teachings of the church. In theory, if not in practice, Congregationalist missionaries believed in the unity of the human race.   In a nation where slavery was still legal, and the separation of the races enforced, American Congregationalist leadership spoke of the  moral unity of mankind.  In 1851, at the ordination of Luther Gulick, M.D. and on the eve of his departure for the Micronesian mission, Rev. Thomson espoused this somewhat radical view.  He taught that “[t]he whole plan of salvation regards the human race as one. The Scriptures teach both the historical and the physical unity of mankind” (Thompson, 1851, p. 4).  “Great as are the varieties among different races of men, their unities are far greater; and in no respect do they differ from each other as widely as in several respects they all alike differ from the inferior animals”  (Thompson, 1851, p. 5). In the ending paragraph of his lengthy sermon Rev. Thompson exhorted the newly ordained missionaries as follows:

Go, brethren, in your favored work.  Fly as with angel-wings to preach the everlasting Gospel. We meet again in an assembly where all diversities of nation and of language shall be lost; where the pale Caucasian, the tawny Indian, the tattooed Islander, and the sable Negro, shall sit down together in their Father’s house.  I charge this congregation, I charge my own soul, to be there with trophies of redeeming grade.  I charge you, brethren, to bring thither such trophies from your distant climes (Thompson, 1851, p. 38).

            The notion of unity did not necessarily translate to equality or to an acceptance of the host culture.  In fact, the very idea of sending missionaries out to distant lands to spread divine truth implies a discontinuity and inequality between the missionary and the people to be missionized.  This inequality is based on two factors:  the “natives” ignorance of Christianity, and their ignorance of “civilized living” and the economic and technical means of attaining it.  As a result, the language used by the early missionaries to Micronesia in describing their mission’s inhabitants sometimes took on tones of racism, superiority, and a heavy dose of paternalism.

These various groups [of Micronesians] differ in language and in the details of their customs and superstitions, but agree in the general characteristics of their native occupants.  They are the natural homes of indolence and sensuality, of theft and violence.  The warmth of the climate renders clothing a superfluity, and the houses needless except for shade; while the constant race of tawny savages stalk round almost or quite naked, swim like fish in the waters, or bask in the sunshine on shore.  They prove as ready to catch, as vile sailors are to communicate, the vices of civilized lands.  Intemperance is an easily besetting sin; and licentiousness is, with rare exceptions, the general and almost ineradicable pollution of the Pacific Islands (Nason, 1978, p. 124).

            Steeled by their religious convictions and training Congregationalist missionaries often became frustrated when confronted by islanders whose desires and habits did not conform to their own.  Rather than working within the local cultural dictates, these missionaries devised methods of converting the islanders not only to Christianity but also to their unique New England notions of individualism, private enterprise, and industriousness.  As demonstrated by Rev. Albert Sturges, one of the first Congregationalist missionaries to Pohnpei, in an 1853 letter to the ABCFM, missionaries were not hesitant to tamper with the local culture to bring about desired changes.

Another of these hindrances is the general indolence of the natives.  Their few wants are so easily supplied that they have but little motive to work.  The arbitrary demands of the chiefs, upon the products of labor, serve to strengthen these indolent habits.  Thus the two strongest motives for industry, necessity and profit, are wanting.  They dread any thing like effort, of either body or mind, and will make almost any shift to avoid it.  We hope, however, that artificial wants will soon be created and a different policy, respecting lands and individual rights, adopted  (A. Sturges, personal communication, 1853).

            As a general rule, missionaries of the ABCFM saw little need to learn much of the indigenous cultures to which they ministered.  For them, the New England template was applicable to all locales and cultures.  They saw no need to compare their own neat mores and judgmental securities against the standards and assumptions of their host cultures.  After all, conversion meant the disappearance of most indigenous practices.  The goal of these missionaries was to convert the “pagan” and to stamp out idol worship, intemperance, and native music, songs, dancing and other heathenish enjoyments.  Naked islanders were to be conservatively clothed, the notion of private land ownership inculcated, the arts of western civilization taught, regular work habits ingrained, and the earth tilled (Gibson, 1993).

            Another common belief held by Congregationalists and other Protestants alike was that the Christian faith and American notions of democracy and capitalism marched together to save and uplift those foreigners lucky enough to fall under both U.S. and Protestant missionary tutelage.  The burdens and responsibilities of missionary work came not only from scriptural dictates but also from the privilege of American citizenship itself.  Reverend Price wrote to the ABCFM:

We have a fine company of young people who will soon want to enter our schools.  .  . Such a work -- evangelical, with chapel to accommodate both American and Chamorro congregations; educational, with day and boarding school properly equipped with teachers and apparatus, giving in addition to ordinary teaching, practical instruction in the industrial arts, which can be successfully conducted without great expense -- will eventually secure the redemption of this beautiful island.  We owe it to the people who dwell under our Stars and Stripes to provide for its economical maintenance until it shall have attained independence and self-support (F.M. Price, 1904 summary, pp 14 - 15).

            For Protestant missionaries, Christianizing and civilizing went hand in hand.  Of course, the missionaries’ notion of civilizing harked back to their background as New England Protestants.  On the eve of their departure to Hawaii, the American missionaries were  instructed to “aim at nothing short of covering those islands with fruitful fields and pleasant dwellings, and schools and churches; of raising up the whole people to an elevated state of Christian civilization; of bringing, or preparing the means of bringing, thousands and millions of the present and succeeding generations to the mansion of the  blessedness” (Phillips, 1969, p. 94).  There was no doubt that the foundation for civilizing emanated from Christianity.

            The Congregationalist missionaries’ notion of “civilizing” was inextricably intertwined with uniquely American concepts of economic and political development as well as a strong emphasis on individualism.  In a study of the American Protestant missionization of the American Indians the following passage summarized the confluence of these factors:

Comprising civilization was a cluster of institutional arrangements that Americans sought to achieve between the Revolution and the Civil War.  Economically, they moved toward allowing economic individualism free rein under the liberal state.  Politically, they first realized republicanism, then democracy.  Lastly, the liberty of the individual was foremost in their minds; hence all social institutions were assumed to exist solely for the benefit of the individual. [Cite]

            Another logical consequence of the Protestant American missionaries inculcating Pacific Islanders with Christian-linked civilizing attributes was the gradual Americanization of the local populace.       Rev. Price was keenly aware of the relationship between missionary nationality and the islanders’ acculturation process.  In a letter to the German Ambassador to the United States, in which he discussed the growing desire of the German government to replace the American missionaries with German missionaries in the German administered Caroline Islands, Price wrote:

. . . while there is nothing improper in missionaries of one nation aiding in the evangelization of newly acquired territory belonging to the other, yet there are reasons which urge to the plan proposed, namely that Germans take care of the Germans and Americans take care of the Americans, in the newly acquired islands where people are, as yet , not attached to any nation save by political ties.

            There are two reasons in my mind which urge this:

            1.) It would be great benefit to the young men of Germany, who are interested in the spiritual and moral welfare of your colonial possessions, to carry the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ into these islands and work for the people. . .

            2.)  And then again, such a plan would give greater efficiency to the work in both fields and more satisfactory results.  Your own islands will be in communication with the home land and ours also.  Naturally you want your people taught the German language and you hope to see among them a growing attachment to the German ideals of life and conduct, and this is right.  Now while our missionaries will, I am sure, endeavor to follow the wishes of your Government in these things and conform to your laws, they cannot do what German missionaries could do.  Their unconscious influence would be to make the people American by the influence of their personality.  The simple hearted people will be impressed with what they see and feel as well as by what they are taught.  Why should not German missionaries work in the German colonies and American missionaries in the American colonies (F.M. Price, personal communication, January 24, 1902).

            Obviously, in attempting to inculcate these principles of civilization, Protestant missionaries challenged and undermined many of the local cultural underpinnings.  Thus, while missionaries played the traditional roles of evangelists and teachers, they too served as the vanguards for cultural change, Westernization and Americanization.   Sometimes the changes were intentional, other times they were inadvertent, but certainly they were always inevitable and seldom lamented.

            Although both Reverends Price and Case shared this common missionary heritage, and therefore were both equally influenced by Congregationalist tenets of puritanical Christianity, New England notions of industriousness, and American concepts of civilizing democracy, their approach and effectiveness as missionaries on Guam differed significantly.  Overall, Rev. Price appears to have been much more effective than Rev. Case. This was due in a large part to the disparity between their ages, level of experience, and personalities.  In general, Rev. Price was much more mature, optimistic, and sensitive to cultural differences, and had a much better grasp of the geopolitical realities facing the Guam mission.  He also appears to have been more adept in meeting the universal challenges facing all missionaries assigned to foreign missions, including  acquiring knowledge of the local culture and language, acclimating to the rigors of life in remote locations, and developing the ability to translate Christian ideas and ideals into the local language and within the cultural framework intelligible to the local population.

            To a certain degree Rev. Price’s and Rev. Case’s relative level of effectiveness as missionaries to Guam was due to their differences in age and level of missionary experience.  When Rev. Price came to Guam he and his wife had already served many years as missionaries in China and Chuuk.  In contrast, Rev. Case had only just graduated from college and married before his arrival on island.  Guam was his first mission.

            One other significant difference between the two was their respective abilities to learn the Chamorro language.  Although Rev. Price had initially hoped that his command of the Spanish language would prove useful, he soon expressed disappointment “that so few of the natives speak the Spanish language well.  Many of them speak it a little but it will not be possible to do our work in that tongue.  We must learn the Chamorro [language]. . . knowledge of the Chamorro [language] is absolutely necessary if we are to reach and instruct the people” (F.M. Price, personal communication, December 18, 1900).  Indeed, in a relatively short period of time, Rev. Price conducted services in broken Chamorro, and over the years wrote Chamorro instructional pamphlets and translated much of the Bible into Chamorro.

            In contrast, even after five years of missionary service to Guam, Rev. Case was unable to attain fluency in the Chamorro language, although he realized the importance of doing so.  “I long for the time when I can speak the Chamorro [language], and through it speak to the heart of the things of Christ and of the larger life of service” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, March 20, 1905).  Only a year before his departure from Guam, Rev. Case wrote:

I am having a serious time with the Chamorro language, I can use it to direct the work but not well enough to preach effectively.  Strong, spiritual preaching in their own language is what our people need, and the church suffers for the lack of it.  I have felt much concern about this, so much so that nothing less than my resignation at times has satisfied my thought (H.E.B. Price, personal communication, January 15, 1909).

            Rev. Case also seemed a much harsher critic of the Chamorros than was Rev. Price.  However, this is not to say that Rev. Price was without judgmental words toward his Chamorro wards.  Rev. Price, in a 1904 pamphlet, wrote of the Chamorros: 

They are a sturdier, stronger people than the Filipinos, but lacking the intellectual alertness, national spirit, love of independence, and impatience under restraint which their cousins in the Philippines possess to a greater or less degree.  They seem to be a discouraged and cowed people, who have been degraded by long years of servitude and suppression of all freedom of action or thought.  Being very superstitious, they are punctilious in the observance of the festivals of the Romish Church, laying great store by amulets and charms and pictures and images in their homes; but they cannot be called moral.  Left to themselves they could be very easily influenced and helped, but the priests hold them in practical slavery to their fear of their supposed power in the world to come, as well as in this present life (Price, 1904, pp. 5 - 6).

A closer reading of these comments along with an understanding of the intent behind the publication decreases the apparent harshness of the critique.  This description was contained in a publication aimed at armchair missionaries in the United States who were helping to support foreign missions.  Price’s obvious intent was to capture the attention and the interest of the readers by exaggerating the level of native depravity so that the positive benefits of Christianity, once attained, would stand out in stark contrast. This added a certain degree of drama to the narration and underscored the need for continued donations to enable the mission to reach its full potential.  “We are grateful also to those friends in America who by their generous contributions have made the work possible; and we still look to them for that material and moral support and intercessory prayer which alone renders success certain” (Price, 1904, page 15).  Also, on close inspection Price’s words reveal that his evaluation of Chamorros was less a finding of indigenous cultural deficiencies than it was a scathing critique of the corrupting influences of Spanish Catholicism.

            Rev. Price’s private letters back to the ABCFM are largely devoid of overt criticism of the Chamorro people.  In the early days of his missionary tenure on Guam he showed restraint in drawing any quick conclusions about the Chamorros.  On December 17, 1900 he wrote that “[i]t is too early to hazard an opinion of the people and their condition and needs.  They are kind, and courteous, always greeting us with the military salute or “buenos dias” and seemingly pleased to have us among them.”   Again, he laid much of the blame for any noted deficiencies on the Catholic church and he prayed that the Chamorros would “be delivered from the cruel yoke of an oppressive religion.” 

            Also, having served as a missionary in other fields Rev. Price was more tolerant of native shortcomings than was Rev. Case.  In the introduction of his summary of 1897 events in Chuuk he wrote:

. . . I desire to preface the journal with a few notes on the customs of the people.  If some of these seem abhorrent to you, kindly remember that we missionaries live and are in daily contact with these people and love them, and remember further that is just these people that the gospel of our Glorious Lord is redeeming . . . (Price, 1897, p.1)

Based on his experience too, Rev. Price could place things in better perspective.  For example he wrote that “[t]his town [Hagatna] is the capital of the island and has a population of from 5 to 6 thousand.  Some of the people are well to do and some profess to be wealthy, but the most of them are very poor.  All are better off, materially, than the Caroline island people” (F.M. Price, personal communication, December 19, 1900).

            Knowledge of the history of other foreign missions and the impact of Catholicism on Protestant evangelism also helped temper Price’s expectations for the Guam mission.   “Evidently they [Chamorros] need the gospel and as we go about among them we cannot doubt that it was the merciful hand of God that led His servants to this field.  The work will not be so rapid as in the Caroline Islands but the good word will win its way here and God’s people will hear the shepherd’s voice in our message and follow Him” (F.M. Price, personal communication, December 17, 1900).

            While such a tenor of guarded optimism pervades Rev. Price’s letters, those of Rev. Case, especially those written in the latter years of his service to Guam, are very somber and frequently pessimistic.  “I may as well confess the truth, that we have begun the year’s work under a serious depression . . . The unproductiveness of our efforts, the gradual slipping of interest, has got on our nerves after three years of dead level” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, Jananuary 22, 1908). 

            Case is also much more judgmental of Chamorros and much less forgiving of their weaknesses than Rev. Price.  His letters are replete with harsh criticism toward them and filled with examples of native deficiencies.  A few examples will serve to underscore this point:

Our immediate problem will be to find among the members of our church those who are able and willing to render this Christian service.  In spite of their good qualities, the Chamorros are very vacillating and faint-hearted, and easily won to the mercenary ideal which the Americans keep before them.  Using my impressions as a basis of deduction, I cannot speak glowingly of large harvests or of easy victories” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, April 10, 1906). 

I never saw a people who fell as easily into routine and formality in religious things.  They make much use of scriptures in the meetings, but they are satisfied to repeat the same passages again and again without regard to a subject.  They don’t like to think very hard about anything, and so they take their religion as easily as possible (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, June 26, 1908).

            In all fairness, however, it must be noted that Case’s criticism of Guam’s inhabitants was not limited to Chamorros. He wrote about military personnel and American civilians with nearly the same level of disdain.  “I have tried to interest the Americans here in religious service, but the response has been very feeble” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, July 17, 1905). “As a whole, the Americans are a non-religious class, the moral standard of the large proportion of them is uncertain, and their influence is against those standards which the Mission attempts to inculcate” (H.E.B. Case, January 19, 1907).

            Rev. Case was not unaware of his inadequacies in relation to Rev. Price’s relative success in ministering to the Chamorros.  In a self-deprecating analysis of the events of 1906, Rev. Case wrote in part:

All of the adults among our adherents were received into our ranks during the first three years of missionary effort, the fruits of the first harvest which Mr. Price reaped with zeal and efficiency. . . The new missionary [Mr. Case] who was unschooled to missionary work and who has met a serious problem in the Chamorro language, could not fill the place left vacant.  Things have dragged necessarily and the church has lost something of its spirit (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, January 19, 1907). 

Later he wrote that:

The mission has also suffered from a lack of continuity.  Mr. Price gathered a group of Chamorros around him with promises which he fully intended to keep, but his sickness took him away.  Since then the Chamorros have been less eager in their responses, and I have never been able to command them in the way Mr. Price did” (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, October 21, 1908).

            In a rather prophetic passage of a 1908 letter from Rev. Case to the ABCFM, Case perhaps set the stage for the final closing of the Guam Congregational mission when he wrote:         

Some words in a recent article of yours have impressed themselves on my mind.  ‘Not to increase the native forces is to mark time.  To increase effectively this force is to move forward along lines of permanency and power.’  . .  . This whole question of native workers is on my heart and nothing else gives me quite so much anxiety, because I feel that we are still in that stage where it must be said of us that we are marking time (H.E.B. Case, personal communication, October 21, 1908).

            Indeed, in the end the Board determined that the Guam mission was simply marking time and therefore did not merit further resources.  Undoubtedly, a number of factors resulted in the Board’s final decision to close the Guam mission.  There is some indication that these factors included a shortage of funds.  The ABCFM had launched an appeal for one million dollars to support its foreign missions.  The appeal faltered (Garrett, 1992).  The limited funds together with the lack of interest shown by the American community toward the mission, the overpowering and undermining influence of the Catholic Church, and the needs of larger and more promising foreign missions were all detrimental factors to the longevity of the Guam mission.

            As important as these factors are in the aggregate, a thorough reading of the missionaries’ letters lends some support to the contention that Rev. Case’s relatively weak performance was also an important factor in the Board’s ultimate decision.  Had he been able to step solidly into the footsteps of Rev. Price and prove that the mission could maintain growth, perhaps the Board would have been swayed to continue the mission’s operation.  Case clearly lacked Rev. Price’s optimism, stamina, determination, and charisma.  His youthfulness, inexperience, and overly judgmental attitude impeded his effectiveness. 

            Clearly, at times the personalities of individual missionaries had much to do with the relative success of a foreign mission.  On Guam, where only two Protestant missionaries were normally stationed at any given time, the influence of a single missionary was heightened.  While Rev. Case may have functioned well in a group of missionaries, he lacked the natural talents to carry the Guam mission by himself and his shortcomings may have significantly contributed to the early closing of the mission.

Summary

            In the waning years of the 19th century world events sparked some nine thousand miles from the relatively tranquil island of Guam set off a course of events which would sweep the island into the frenetic and ultimately cataclysm mainstream of the 20th century.  Lost by Spain in its ill-fated war with the U. S., Guam and at the same time, the Philippines, became America’s first Asian possessions.  Within months, the U.S. began to administer the island under the  autocratic control of the U.S. military.

            For two long-absent Chamorro brothers, Jose and Luis Custino, the dramatic shift in the island’s fate offered a window of opportunity to return to Guam and share their new-found Protestant faith with their fellow Chamorros.  This would prove to be a daunting challenge to the Custino brothers and the Congregationalist missionaries who followed closely in their wake.  During the mission’s nine year tenure, the results were largely disappointing.

            These were the same Congregationalists who had first begun their Pacific evangelical outreach in 1820 in the Hawaiian islands.  As the direct descendants of the Puritans and infused with the Protestant revivalist spirit which had recently swept across the northeast U.S., they arrived in Hawaii confident in their religious convictions, self-righteous, and imbued with the Yankee attributes of individualism, hard work, and self-sufficiency.  As recent graduates of prestigious New England colleges with strong religious affiliations, this youthful corps of like-minded and dedicated missionaries arrived in Hawaii determined  to Christianize  Hawaii, Oceania, and indeed the rest of the world, in a single generation.

            Although their time-table proved somewhat unrealistic, the missionaries’ efforts in  Hawaii met with great success.  Fortuitous events which preceded the missionaries’ arrival and the intervention of Tahitians sympathetic to the Protestant cause, helped open the minds and hearts of the Hawaiian people to the Protestant message of eternal salvation through the acceptance of Jesus Christ. 

            So successful was the Hawaiian mission, that only thirty-two years later the Hawaiian Missionary Society, in conjunction with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Boston, Massachusetts, struck out on its own to evangelize its  Micronesian neighbors living on the islands of Kosrae and Pohnpei.  Although the progress in Micronesia lagged behind that of Hawaii, the Micronesian missions were widely acclaimed to be successful. 

            When the Congregationalists first arrived in Hawaii and Micronesia, neither fell under the colonial umbrella of any foreign nation.  Rather, both were independent and governed by local chiefs who wielded power through cultural hierarchal dictates, diplomatic alliances, and brute force.  The missionaries operated within the system, and over time, learned to manipulate it to their advantage.  Fortunately for the Protestant missionaries to these islands, prior to their arrival, neither the Hawaiians nor the Micronesians had yet undergone mass missionization efforts by any other Western religious group and the islanders’ own indigenous religions were unraveling as a result of Western contact.

            The initial three Congregationalist missionaries and their successors assigned to Guam found themselves in a very different situation than that of their predecessors to the Hawaiian and Micronesian missions.  Several factors were significantly different and together these factors led to the overall disappointing results. 

            Among these factors was a very different geopolitical situation in the Pacific at the time the Guam mission opened.  U.S. interest and presence in the region had increased significantly since the mid-19th century.  The commercial potential of China, the international rivalry which resulted, plus the emergence of Japan as a major military power in the region suddenly placed Guam in an important strategic position. 

            As a result, administrative control of the island was placed in the hands of the U.S. Navy.  The head Naval officer was designated as the island’s Governor and he was bestowed with plenary control over both the military and civilian communities.  The Governor operated within administrative parameters which theoretically required separation of church and state.  However, these parameters frequently proved to be quite malleable depending upon the religious convictions of the Governor and the type of interests involved given a particular set of circumstances.  The missionaries often felt that the Governor’s decisions worked to their mission’s disadvantage.  They attempted to influence various administrative decisions but were much less successful in such an enterprise than were their fellow missionaries to Hawaii and Micronesia.

            Perhaps the greatest obstacle to the Guam Protestant mission was the sheer weight of over two hundred and thirty years of Spanish Catholicism on the island.  Catholic authorities had wielded tremendous power over Chamorros during this entire time and they were not about to surrender their authority without a battle, which they waged at many levels.  Also, unlike Hawaii and Micronesia where the islanders’ religious affiliations had begun to waiver, Chamorros were for the most part stead-fast in their Catholic faith.  In addition, many facets of Catholicism had seeped into the Chamorro culture.  Consequently, luring Chamorros away from Catholicism proved extremely difficult and those who did choose to pray against the Catholic tide often did so at an extremely high social cost. 

            Internal dissent within the ranks of the Guam Protestant missionaries and the island’s Naval administration over the issue of whether to consider Catholics Christians also served to undermine some of the effectiveness of the Protestant mission.  For many decades the same debate had been waged within the various Protestant denominations.  Doctrinally, Congregationalists at the turn of the 20th century considered Catholics no better than pagans.  Some Protestant denominations, such as the Episcopalians, took a more conciliatory approach to the matter.  There were those, including one of the Guam Congregationalist missionaries and many of the island’s military personnel, who did consider Catholics to be part of the wider Christian family and therefore considered the Guam Protestant mission to be unnecessarily duplicitous and derisive.

            Finally, the unique personalities of the individual Guam Protestant missionaries had a definite impact on the success of the mission.  The first missionary, Rev. Francis Price, was very experienced having served previously in both China and in Chuuk.  He was pragmatic and optimistic and seemingly possessed with impressive diplomatic and linguistic skills.  Rev. Case, on the other hand, was a young neophyte missionary, prone to pessimism and somewhat lacking in charisma.  Undoubtedly, the picture he painted for the ABCFM had much to do with the ultimate decision to phase-out the Guam mission.  Faced with the growing needs in China, the realities of a shrinking budget for international missionary work, and the lack of support from the military community, Rev. Case’s assessment surely made the ABCFM’s ultimate decision fairly easy.

            Therefore, no one single factor can be isolated to explain the relatively disappointing results of the Congregationalist mission to Guam.  Rather, the confluence of all the factors described above conspired to handicap the mission. 
 

References

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